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Water-Babies 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NBW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 













Tom and his friend in the lobster pot 





Water-Babies 


By Charles Kingsley 

Edited by Clifton Johnson 


Illustrated by 
Frank A. Nankivell 


Published by The Macmillan Company 
New York MCMXVl 


London : Macmillan and Co., Limited 



Copyright, 1916, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 


Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1916. 



OCT 12 1916 


Norbioob 

J. 8. Cushing Co. — Berwick «fe Smith Oo. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 


©GI.A446049 

‘T-O ( V 


Introduction 


C HARLES KINGSLEY, preacher, novelist, poet, 
and reformer, was born in 1819. His father was 
a clergyman, and the family was living at Holne in 
southwestern England not far from Plymouth. But 
within a few years they took up their residence in 
Barnack rectory near Peterborough in the fen country 
of the east coast. 

The rectory was more than four hundred years old, 
and it had a haunted chamber which was frequented by 
a ghost known as ‘‘Button Cap.’’ Kingsley himself 
has written that “Button Cap lived in the great north 
room. He used to walk across the floor in flapping 
slippers and turn over the leaves of books to find the 
missing deed, whereof he had defrauded the orphan 
and the widow. He was an old rector of Barnack. He 
wore a flowered dressing-gown and a cap with a button 
on it. Sometimes he turned cross and rolled the barrels 
in the cellar about with surprising noise. But he put 
them all back in their places before morning. He 
was rats !” 


VI 


Introduction 


At the age of four Charles began to compose both 
poems and sermons, and he liked to make a little pulpit 
in the nursery and preach to an imaginary congrega- 
tion. His father was a keen ^ortsman and took the 
boy out on shooting expeditions as soon as the little 
fellow could sit on a horse. 

In 1830 the family returned to the southwest of 
England and estabhshed themselves at the quaint 
little coast town of Clovelly, where the sailors and 
fishermen and the rocky shore and blue sea filled the 
boy with wonder and delight. 

When he was thirteen he left home to go to school, 
at first near Bristol, and a year later at Helston, only 
a short distance from Land’s End, where he greatly 
enjoyed sallying out, hammer in hand, and his botanical 
tin slung round his neck, on some long expedition to 
investigate the rocks and search for new flowers. 

His father was transferred to a London parish in 1836, 
and Charles became a student at King’s College. 
Two years later he continued his studies at Cambridge. 
There he was known as an excellent companion, full of 
information of all kinds, who treated every subject 
he discussed with striking originality. He had great 
physical strength. One day he made an early start 
and walked fifty-two miles from Cambridge to London, 


Introduction 


Vll 


where he arrived at nine in the evening. On many a 
day in the years that followed he would tramp twenty 
to twenty-five miles simply for refreshment. 

At the age of twenty-three he graduated from Cam- 
bridge, and soon afterward became curate in the rustic 
parish of Eversley, about forty miles southwest of 
London near Aldershot. Within two years he was 
appointed vicar and married. Previous to his coming 
the alehouses were full on Sunday and the church 
empty, and when grass was scarce the farmers turned 
their sheep into the neglected churchyard. Hardly a 
man or woman among the laborers could read or write, 
and the only school was kept in a room ten feet square 
and seven high, where cobbling shoes and teaching and 
flogging the children went on together. He wrote 
at this time, go to the school every day and teach 
as long as I can stand the heat and the smell.’’ 

His influence in the parish became very great, but 
was acquired less through the excellence of his church 
services than by daily house to house visiting. He 
could discuss the rotation of crops with the farmers, 
he understood hedging and ditching as well as ary 
laborer, and he could swing a flail and pitch hay as 
expertly as the best of them ; nor was he surpassed in all 
the countryside for his knowledge and skill in fishing 


Introduction 


viii 

and hunting. There was abounding humor and fun 
in his intercourse, and he was always courteous and 
considerate and free from artificiality. A hunger for 
knowledge made him eager to talk to and learn from 
every one he met, and this put him on an easy human 
footing with his people. 

He established clubs, a loan fund, village lectures, 
and singing classes, and in every way did what he 
could to brighten the monotonous lives of the peasantry. 
When the cholera threatened to invade Eversley, and 
fear made it difficult to secure nurses, Mr. Kingsley 
was with those who were ill at all hours. Another 
year there was an epidemic of diphtheria in the region, 
and he went from house to house with medicine, unre- 
gardful of personal danger. 

A great heath fire started one Sunday in the middle 
of divine service, and he hurried out of the church, 
armed himself with a billhook, organized bands of 
beaters, and with them resisted the farther advance of 
the flames. The fire was still smoldering that night, 
and he went round to inspect the situation and cheer 
the watchers. 

He early associated himself with those who were 
fighting against oppression and wrong, and was a 
strong power in the contest with the evil in the world 


Introduction 


IX 


through his spoken words, his letters, and his books. 
His course aroused antagonism, newspapers attacked 
him, and some persons refused to associate with him, 
but he fought on. 

For several years he was professor of modern history 
at Cambridge. His ideal of education was to make it 
not so much a matter of what was taught as the train- 
ing of “men — bold, energetic, methodic, liberal- 
minded, magnanimous.’’ One of his Cambridge pupils 
has said: “There was a strange fascination about 
him which no young man could resist. No other 
lecture room was half so full and none half so quiet. 
One could hear a pin fall.” 

It was his habit to rise at five o’clock and write till 
breakfast. His parish work in the main kept him 
busy all through the day and into the evening. Then 
he would labor deep into the night at the book he was 
preparing for the press. Most of what he wrote was 
thought out while walking, fishing, or engaged in other 
outdoor occupation. Much writing was done for him 
by his wife, to whom he dictated as he paced up and 
down the room. 

His impetuous, restless energy was always evident, 
his application was intense, and brain and nerves were 
ever on the stretch. He believed it was “better to 


X 


Introduction 


/ 

/ 



wear out than to rust out.’’ At the age bi forty he 
wrote, ‘‘I have known enough ill-health and sorrow to 
make me feel very old.” 

He had many visitors, and he was at his best talking 
to some congenial guest at the day’s end after the rest 
of the household had retired and he sat by the study 
fire. Stammering was all his life a “misery” to him, 
but he was free from it in the pulpit, and he used to say 
that he could speak for God but not for himself. 

On various occasions he preached before Queen Vic- 
toria at Buckingham Palace, and in later life he 
preached somewhat frequently at Westminster Abbey, 
where he drew immense congregations. 

He had two sons and two daughters, and it was 
always his endeavor to surround them as children with 
an atmosphere of cheerfulness. He considered that 
their enjoyment was good in itself and valuable as a 
tonic for the inevitable trials of life. Their rooms 
were the largest and sunniest in the house, and they had 
a wooden hut on high ground in a bit of woodland where 
they kept books and toys and tea-things and spent 
long, happy days. At this hut their father would join 
them when his parish work Was done, bringing them 
some flower, fern, beetle, lizard, or other treasure picked 
up on his walk. 


Introduction 


XI 


The Kingsley children began Sunday with decking 
the graves, an example which the parishioners followed 
so that by the time for service the churchyard looked 
like a flower garden. After service they went for a 
stroll on the moor with their father, who pointed out 
each fresh object of natural beauty. Later, indoors, 
the Sunday picture books were brought out, and the 
little folks chose a Bible subject for him to draw. 

Punishment was little known in the home, and 
he was careful not to confuse his children with a multi- 
plicity of small rules. ‘‘It is difficult enough to keep 
the ten commandments,^’ he would say, “without 
making an eleventh in every direction.” He believed 
that weariness at lessons and sudden fits of temper 
often spring from purely physical causes, and are 
mere phases of depression which disappear with change 
of occupation, air, and scene. 

The family gatherings were the brightest hours in 
the day. “I wonder,” he would say, “if there is as 
much laughing in any other home in England as in 
ours.” He seemed as light-hearted as a boy in the 
presence of his children. The fierceness which some- 
times flashed out in the presence of wrong and op- 
pression, of meanness and untruth, was never shown in 
the home. 


Introduction 


xii 

His dog and his horse were his friends, and they 
knew it. He was an excellent rider, and if his horse 
shied he did not lose his temper and increase its 
fear by punishment, but talked to it like a rational 
being. His dog was his companion in all his parish 
walks. He took great delight in cats and never tired 
of watching their graceful movements. 

On the rectory lawn dwelt a family of running toads 
who continued on from year to year in the same hole, 
which the scythe was never allowed to approach. He 
made friends with a pair of sand wasps. They lived in a 
crack of the window in his dressing room, and every 
spring he looked eagerly for them or their descendants 
as they came out of or returned to the same crack. 
The little fly-catcher, which built its nest each year 
under his bedroom window, was a constant joy to him. 
He encouraged his children to love and handle gently 
toads, frogs, beetles, and all other living things. 

He knew the notes of all the birds and was deeply 
interested in their habits. When the winter was past 
he looked for the coming of the birds of passage with 
a strange longing. His eyes would fill with tears at 
each fresh arrival, and in autumn he grieved over 
each departure. 

One morning in 1862, when his youngest son was four 


Introduction 


xiii 

years old, his wife reminded him at the breakfast table 
that he had promised to write a book for the ‘‘baby/' 
He made no answer, but got up, went to his study, and 
locked the door. In half an hour he returned with the 
first chapter of “Water-Babies." The whole book was 
more like inspiration than composition, and seemed 
to flow naturally out of his brain and heart. His 
only other child's book that at all rivals this in popular 
interest is “The Heroes," a retelling of old Greek myths. 
Probably these will outlive any of his novels. 

Mr. Kingsley has said in one of his letters, “Hove 
home and green fields more and more." He did not 
travel largely even in England, and his journeys 
outside were single trips to Ireland, Scotland, the 
continent, the West Indies, and the United States. 

He arrived in New York in February, 1874, and 
here are some stray comments that he made in his 
letters on what he saw : “ It is a glorious country, and 
I don't wonder at the people being very proud of it. 
New England is in winter an iron land which only iron 
people could have settled in. They must have been 
heroes to make what they have of it." He spoke of 
Niagara as “this lovely phantom," and went on to 
say, “After all it is not a quarter of the size of an 
average thunderstorm, and the continuous roar and 


XIV 


Introduction 


steady flow make it less terrible than either a thunder- 
storm or a real Atlantic surf.’^ He called the Mississippi 
“a huge rushing muddy ditch/’ and he remarked of 
the prairies that they had ^^a sadness as of a desert 
sea.” 

After he had reached the Pacific Coast an attack of 
sickness made him hasten his return. He was at home 
in Eversley in August and presently resumed preaching 
in Westminster, but his bent back and shrunken figure 
grieved those who remembered how he had carried 
himself so nobly. He died in January and was buried 
at Eversley. There had been deep snow and bitter 
cold for weeks, but the day of the funeral was kindly 
and mild, with now and then gleams of sunshine. 
People came from near and far. Villagers and strangers 
mingled together, the famous and the wealthy, the 
humble and the poor, soldiers and sailors, gypsies, men 
of many creeds and professions, Englishmen and 
Americans. Few eyes were dry when his body was 
lowered into the grave, and every one went away 
feeling that life was poorer for his going. 

This edition of “Water-Babies” has been prepared 
especially for American children. They have always 
delighted in the story so far as the main narrative is 
concerned ; but most of them will not read the com- 


Introduction 


XV 


plete book, nor listen with unfaltering interest even 
when it is read to them. The present edition endeavors 
to sustain the attraction from beginning to end by 
omitting scientific and religious discussions, rambling 
digressions, and obscure references that the average 
child, and many grown persons also, find are stumbling 
blocks to them in their reading. 

Aside from omissions, the only changes in the text 
are the correction of occasional obvious grammatical 
or typographical mistakes, and the substitution now and 
then of a modern word for one that is obsolete, or the 
turning into an American form an English expression 
which would not be understood by our children. The 
text is not in any wise rewritten. 

CLIFTON JOHNSON 

Hadley, Mass. 



Illustrations 


Tom and his friend in the lobster pot 

Frontispiece 

On the way to Harthover Place 


I 

The nurse catches Tom by the jacket 

facing 

20 

Going down the crags 

. 

33 . 

The old school in Vendale .... 

facing 

38^ 

Tom is knocked over by a big trout . 

. 

54 

Sitting on the buoy looking for water-babies 

. 

82 

Three great two-legged creatures on the bank . 

facing 

84 

The professor catches Tom in his net 

facing 

100 

St. Brandon teaching the water-babies 

. 

104 

The tree dwellings of the Doasyoulikes 

• 

131 

Tom and the cabinet of lollipops 

facing 

132 / 

The last of the Gairfowl 

. 

153 

On the deck of the wrecked ship . . . 

facing 

170 ^ 

Before them ran a gentleman shearing a pig 

• 

184 

Mr. Grimes in the chimney .... 

facing 

212 ^ 


xvii 




O NCE upon a time there was a little chimney- 
sweep, and his name was Tom. He lived in 
a great town in the North country,^ where there 

1 The north of England. The scene of this part of the story was in or 
near Yorkshire. 


I 


2 


Water-Babies 


were plenty of chimneys to sweep, and plenty of 
money for Tom to earn and his master to spend. 
He could not read nor write, and did not care to 
do either; and he never washed himself, for there 
was no water up the court where he lived. He cried 
half his time, and laughed the other half. He cried 
when he had to climb the dark flues,^ rubbing his poor 
knees and elbows raw; and when the soot got into 
his eyes, which it did every day in the week; and 
when his master beat him, which he did every day 
in the week; and when he had not enough to eat, 
which happened every day in the week likewise. And 
he laughed the other half of the day, when he was 
tossing halfpennies with the other boys, or pla3dng 
leapfrog over the posts. As for chimney-sweeping, 
and being hungry, and being beaten, he took all that 
for the way of the world, like the rain and snow and 
thunder, and stood manfully with his back to it till 
it was over, as his old donkey did to a hailstorm; 
and then was as jolly as ever, and thought of the 
fine times coming, when he would be a man, and a 
master sweep, and wear velveteens, and keep a white 


^ The English law since 1842 has forbidden any one under the age of 
twenty-one to go up a chimney to sweep it. Before that time small boys 
did much of the work. 


Water-Babies 


3 


bulldog with one gray ear, and carry her puppies in 
his pocket, just like a man. He would have appren- 
tices, one, two, three, if he could. How he would 
bully them and knock them about, just as his 
master did him ; and make them carry home the soot 
sacks, while he rode before them on his donkey, with 
a pipe in his mouth and a flower in his button-hole, 
like a king at the head of his army. Yes, there were 
good times coming. 

One day a smart little groom rode into the court 
where Tom lived. Tom was just hiding behind a 
wall, to heave half a brick at his horse’s legs, as is the 
custom of that country when they welcome strangers ; 
but the groom saw him, and halloed to him to know 
where Mr. Grimes, the chimney-sweep, lived. Mr. 
Grimes was Tom’s master, and Tom was always civil 
to customers. So he put the half-brick down quietly 
behind the wall, and proceeded to take orders. 

Mr. Grimes was to come next morning to Sir John 
Harthover’s, for his old chimney-sweep was gone to 
prison, and the chimneys wanted sweeping. He rode 
away, not giving Tom time to ask what the sweep had 
gone to prison for, which was a matter of interest to 
Tom, as he had been in prison once or twice himself. 
Moreover, the groom looked so very neat and clean. 


4 


Water-Babies 


with his drab breeches, drab jacket, snow-white tie 
with a smart pin in it, and clean round ruddy face, 
that Tom was offended and disgusted at his appear- 
ance, and considered him a stuck-up fellow, who gave 
himself airs because he wore smart clothes and other 
people paid for them; and went behind the wall to 
fetch the half-brick after all : but did not, remember- 
ing that he had come in the way of business, and 
was, as it were, under a flag of truce. 

His master was so delighted at his new customer 
that he knocked Tom down, and drank more beer 
that night than he usually did in two, in order to 
be sure of getting up in time next morning. When 
he did get up, he knocked Tom down again, in order 
to teach him that he must be an extra good boy 
that day, as they were going to a great house, and 
might make a very good thing of it, if they could 
give satisfaction. 

Tom thought so likewise, and, indeed, would have 
done his best, even without being knocked down. 
For, of all places on earth, Harthover Place (which he 
had never seen) was the most wonderful ; and, of all 
men on earth. Sir John (whom he had seen, having 
been sent to jail by him twice) was the most awful. 

Harthover Place was really a grand place, even for 


Water-Babies 


5 


the rich North country; with a park full of deer, 
which Tom believed to be monsters who were in the 
habit of eating children ; with miles of game- 
preserves,^ in which Mr. Grimes and the collier-lads 
poached at times, on which occasions Tom saw 
pheasants, and wondered what they tasted like. 
Harthover was a grand place, and Sir John a grand 
old man, whom even Mr. Grimes respected. Not 
only did he own all the land about for miles; not 
only was he a jolly, honest, sensible squire, who would 
do what he thought right by his neighbors, as well as 
get what he thought right for himself, but, what was 
more, he weighed full two hundred pounds, was nobody 
knew how many inches round the chest, and could 
have thrashed Mr. Grimes himself in fair fight, which 
very few folk round there could do, and which would 
not have been right for him to do, as a great many 
things are not which one both can do, and would Hke 
very much to do. So Mr. Grimes touched his hat to 
him when he rode through the town, and called him 
a ^‘buirdly awd chap,’’ ^ and his young ladies “gradely ^ 

^ Land on which the owner raises and protects game for hunting. 
Any one who kills or snares the animals on a game-preserve without 
the owner’s permission is a poacher. 

2 Fine-looking old fellow. 

3 Handsome. 


6 


Water-Babies 


lasses/^ which are two high compliments in the North 
country; and thought that made up for his poaching 
Sir John’s pheasants. 

I dare say you never got up at three o’clock on a 
midsummer morning. Some people get up then be- 
cause they want to catch salmon ; and some because 
they want to climb Alps ; and a great many more, be- 
cause they must, like Tom. But, I assure you, that 
three o’clock on a midsummer morning is the pleas- 
antest time of all the twenty-four hours, and all the 
three hundred and sixty-five days; and why every 
one does not get up then I never could tell, save that 
they are determined to spoil their nerves and their 
complexions by doing all night what they might just 
as well do all day. But Tom, instead of going out to 
dinner at half-past eight at night, and to a ball at ten, 
went to bed at seven, when his master went to the 
public-house, and slept like a pig: for which reason 
he was always ready to get up when the fine gentlemen 
and ladies were just ready to go to bed. 

He and his master set out. Grimes rode the donkey 
in front, and Tom with the brushes walked behind; 
out of the court, and up the street, past the closed 
window-shutters, and the winking weary policemen, 
and the roofs shining gray in the gray dawn. 


Water-Babies 


7 


They passed through the pitmen’s ^ village, all shut 
up and silent now; and through the turnpike; and 
then they were out in the real country, and plodding 
along the black dusty road, between black slag walls, 
with no sound but the groaning and thumping of the 
pit-engine in the next field. But soon the road grew 
white, and the walls likewise; and at the wall’s foot 
grew long grass and gay flowers, all drenched with 
dew; and instead of the groaning of the pit-engine, 
they heard the skylark saying his matins ^ high up in 
the air, and the pit-bird warbling in the sedges, as he 
had warbled all night long. 

All else was silent. For old Mrs. Earth was still fast 
asleep. The great elm trees in the meadows were fast 
asleep above, and the cows fast asleep beneath them. 

On they went ; and Tom looked, and looked, for he 
never had been so far into the country before; and 
longed to get over a gate, and pick buttercups, and 
look for birds’ nests in the hedge ; but Mr. Grimes was 
a man of business, and would not have heard of that. 

Soon they came up with a poor Irishwoman, trudg- 
ing along with a bundle at her back. She had a gray 
shawl over her head, and a crimson petticoat. She 

^ Pitmen are workers in the pit of a coal mine. 

* An early morning religious service. 


8 


Water-Babies 


had neither shoes nor stockings, and limped along as 
if she were tired and footsore : but she was a very tall, 
handsome woman, with bright eyes, and heavy black 
hair hanging about her cheeks. She took Mr. Grimes’s 
fancy so much that when he came alongside he called 
out to her, ‘‘This is a hard road for a gradely foot 
like that. Will ye up, lass, and ride behind me?” 

But perhaps she did not admire Mr. Grimes’s look 
and voice, for she answered quietly: “No, thank 
you; I’d sooner walk with your little lad here.” 

“You may please yourself,” growled Grimes, and 
went on smoking. 

So she walked beside Tom, and talked to him, and 
asked him where he lived, and what he knew, and all 
about himself, till Tom thought he had never before 
met such a pleasant-spoken woman. She asked him, 
at last, whether he said his prayers ; and seemed sad 
when he told her that he knew no prayers to say. 

Then he asked her where she lived; and she said 
far away by the sea. Tom asked her about the sea : 
and she told him how it rolled and roared over the 
rocks in winter nights, and lay still in the bright sum- 
mer days for the children to bathe and play in it; 
and many a story more, till Tom longed to go and see 
the sea, and bathe in it likewise. 


Water-Babies 


9 


At last, at the bottom of a hill, they came to a spring : 
not a spring which soaks up out of a white gravel in 
the bog, among red fly-catchers,^ and pink bottle- 
heath, and sweet white orchis ; nor such a one as bubbles 
up under the warm sand-bank in the hollow lane by 
the great tuft of lady ferns, and makes the sand dance 
reels at the bottom, day and night, all the year round ; 
not such a spring as either of those : but a real North 
country limestone fountain, like one of those in Sicily 
or Greece, where the old heathen fancied the nymphs 
sat cooling themselves on the hot summer days while 
the shepherds peeped at them from behind the bushes. 
Out of a low cave of rock, at the foot of a limestone 
crag, the great fountain rose, bubbling and gurgling, 
so clear that you could not tell where the water ended 
and the air began; and ran away under the road, a 
stream large enough to turn a mill; among blue ge- 
ranium, and golden globe-flower, and wild raspberry, 
and the bird-cherry with its tassels of snow. 

There Grimes stopped, and looked ; and Tom looked 
too. Tom was wondering whether anything lived in 
that dark cave, and came out at night to fly in the 
meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all. 

^ Commonly called the sundew. Its leaves are sticky and catch 
flies and other insects. 


lO 


Water-Babies 


Without a word he got off his donkey, and clambered 
over the low road wall, and knelt down, and began 
dipping his ugly head into the spring — and very dirty 
he made it. 

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. 
The Irishwoman helped him, and showed him how to 
tie them up; and a very pretty nosegay they had 
made between them. But, when he saw Grimes ac- 
tually wash, he stopped, quite astonished ; and, when 
Grimes had finished, he said : “Why, master, I never 
saw you do that before.’^ 

“Nor will again, most likely. ’Twasn’t for cleanli- 
ness I did it, but for coolness. I’d be ashamed to want 
washing every week or so, like any smutty coUier-lad.” 

“I wish I might go and dip my head in,” said Tom. 
“It must be as good as putting it under the town- 
pump ; and there is no beadle ^ here to drive a chap 
away.” 

“Thou come along,” said Grimes; “what dost want 
with washing thyself? Thou did not drink half a 
gallon of beer last night, like me.” 

“I don’t care for you,” said naughty Tom, and ran 
down to the stream and began washing his face. 

^An official whose duty it was to enforce good behavior in the 
church and to help the constable maintain order in the parish. 


Water-Babies 


II 


Grimes was very sulky because the woman preferred 
Tom’s company to his ; so he dashed at him with horrid 
words, and tore him up from his knees, and began beat- 
ing him. But Tom was accustomed to that, and got 
his head safe between Mr. Grimes’s legs, and kicked 
his shins with all his might. 

“ Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes ? ” 
cried the Irishwoman over the wall. 

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name ; 
but all he answered was, ‘‘No: nor never was yet;” 
and went on beating Tom. 

“True, for if you ever had been ashamed of your- 
self you would have gone over into Vendale long ago.” 

“What do you know about Vendale?” shouted 
Grimes ; but he left off beating Tom. 

“I know about Vendale, and about you, too. I 
know, for instance, what happened in Aldermire Copse, 
by night, two years ago.” 

“You do?” shouted Grimes; and leaving Tom, 
he climbed up over the wall, and faced the woman. 
Tom thought he was going to strike her; but she 
looked him too full and fierce in the face for that. 

“Yes; I was there,” said the Irishwoman, quietly. 

“You are no Irishwoman, by your speech,” said 
Grimes, after many bad words. 


12 


Water-Babies 


Never mind who I am. I saw what I saw; and 
if you strike that boy again I can tell what I know.’’ 

Grimes seemed quite cowed, and got on his donkey 
without another word. 

^^Stop!” said the Irishwoman. ‘‘I have one more 
word for you both; for you will both see me again, 
before all is over. Those that wish to be clean, clean 
they will be ; and those that wish to be foul, foul they 
will be. Remember.” 

She turned away through a gate into the meadow. 
Grimes stood still a moment, like a man who had been 
stunned. Then he rushed after her, shouting, ‘‘You 
come back.” But when he got into the meadow the 
woman was not there. 

Had she hidden away? There was no place to hide 
in. But Grimes looked about, and Tom also, for he 
was as puzzled as Grimes himself at her disappearing 
so suddenly; but look where they would, she was not 
there. 

Grimes came back as silent as a post, for he was a 
little frightened ; and, getting on his donkey, filled a 
fresh pipe, and smoked away, leaving Tom in peace. 

Now they had gone three miles and more, and came 
to Sir John’s lodge-gates. 

Very grand lodges they were, with iron gates, and 


Water-Babies 


13 


stone gate-posts, and on the top of each a most dread- 
ful bogy all teeth, horns, and tail, which was the crest 
Sir John’s ancestors wore in the Wars of the Roses ; 
and very prudent men they were to wear it, for all 
their enemies must have run for their lives at the very 
first sight of them. 

Grimes rang at the gate, and out came a keeper and 
opened it. 

‘‘I was told to expect thee,” he said. ‘‘Now, thou’lt 
be so good as to keep to the main avenue, and not let 
me find a hare or a rabbit on thee when thou comest 
back. I shall look sharp for one.” 

“Not if it’s in the bottom of the soot-bag,” quoth 
Grimes, and at that he laughed; and the keeper 
laughed and said, “If that’s thy sort, I may as well 
walk up with thee to the haU.” 

“I think thou best had. It’s thy business to see 
after thy game, man, and not mine.” 

So the keeper went with them ; and, to Tom’s sur- 
prise, he and Grimes chatted together all the way 
quite pleasantly. 

They walked up a great lime avenue, a full mile 
long, and between the tree stems Tom peered trembling 
at the horns of the sleeping deer which stood up among 
the ferns. Tom had never seen such enormous trees. 


14 


Water-Babies 


and as he looked up he fancied that the blue sky rested 
on their heads. But he was puzzled very much by 
a strange murmuring noise, which followed them all 
the way. At last he took courage to ask the keeper 
what it was. 

He spoke very civilly and called him Sir, for he was 
horribly afraid of him, which pleased the keeper, and 
he told him that they were the bees about the lime- 
flowers. 

‘‘What are bees?” asked Tom. 

“Thou hold thy noise,” said Grimes. 

“Let the boy be,” said the keeper. “He's a civil 
young chap now, and that's more than he'll be long, 
if he bides with thee.” 

Grimes laughed, for he took that for a compliment. 

“I wish I were a keeper,” said Tom, “to live in such 
a beautiful place, and wear green velveteens, and have 
a real dog- whistle at my button, like you.” 

The keeper was a kind-hearted fellow. “Let well 
alone, lad. Thy life's safer than mine at all events, 
eh, Mr. Grimes?” 

Grimes laughed again, and then the two men began 
talking quite low. Tom could hear, though, that it 
was about some poaching fight; and at last Grimes 
said surlily, “Hast thou anything against me?” 


Water-Babies 


IS 

‘‘Not now.’’ 

“Then don’t ask me any questions till thou hast, 
for I am a man of honor.” 

At that they both laughed again, and thought it a 
very good joke. 

By this time they were come to the great iron gates 
in front of the house; arid Tom stared through them 
at the rhododendrons and azaleas, which were all in 
flower; and then at the house itself, and wondered 
how many chimneys there were in it, and how long ago 
it was built, and what was the name of the man who 
built it, and whether he got much money for his job ? 

These last were very difficult questions to answer ; 
for Harthover had been built at ninety different times, 
and in nineteen different styles, and looked as if some- 
body had built a whole street of houses of every im- 
aginable shape, and then stirred them together with a 
spoon. 

So Harthover House was a great puzzle to anti- 
quarians, and critics, and architects, and all persons 
who lik e meddling with other men’s business and spend- 
ing other men’s money. They were all setting on poor 
Sir John, year after year, and trying to talk him into 
spending a hundred thousand pounds or so in build- 
ing to please them and not himself. But he always 


i6 


Water-Babies 


put them off. He had no more notion of disturbing 
his ancestors’ work than of disturbing their graves. 
For now the house looked like a real live house that 
had a history, and had grown and grown as the world 
grew; and it was only an upstart fellow who did not 
know who his own grandfather was, who would change 
it for some spick and span new thing, which looked as 
if it had been all spawned in a night, as mushrooms are. 

Tom and his master did not go in through the great 
iron gates, but round the back way, and into a little 
back door, where the ash-boy let them in, yawning 
horribly. Then in a passage the housekeeper met 
them, in such a flowered chintz dressing-gown, that 
Tom mistook her for My Lady herself, and she gave 
Grimes solemn orders about, “You will take care of 
this, and take care of that,” as if he was going up the 
chimneys, and not Tom. 

Grimes listened, and said every now and then, under 
his breath, “You’ll remember that, you little beggar?” 
and Tom did remember, all at least that he could. 

Then the housekeeper turned them into a grand 
room, where everything was covered up in sheets of 
brown paper, and in a lofty and tremendous voice 
bade them begin. So after a whimper or two, and a 
kick from his master, into the grate Tom went, and 


Water-Babies 


17 


up the chimney, while a housemaid stayed in the room 
to watch the furniture; to whom Mr. Grimes paid 
many playful and chivalrous compliments, but met 
with very slight encouragement in return. 

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say : but 
he swept so many that he got quite tired, and puzzled 
too, for they were not like the town flues to which he 
was accustomed, but such as you would find in old 
country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which 
had been altered again and again till they ran one into 
another. Tom fairly lost his way in them; not that 
he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy dark- 
ness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a 
mole is underground ; but at last, coming down as he 
thought the right chimney, he came down the wrong 
one, and found himself standing on the hearthrug in a 
room the like of which he had never seen before. 

Tom had never been in gentlefolks’ rooms but when 
the carpets were all up, and the curtains down, and the 
furniture huddled together under a cloth, and the 
pictures covered with aprons and dusters; and he 
had often wondered what the rooms were like when 
they were all ready for the quality to sit in. Now he 
saw, and he thought the sight very pretty. 

The room was all dressed in white: white window 
c 


i8 


Water-Babies 


curtains, white bed curtains, white furniture, and 
white walls, with just a few lines of pink here and there. 
The carpet was all over gay little flowers; and the 
walls were hung with pictures in gilt frames, which 
amused Tom very much. There were pictures of 
ladies and gentlemen, and pictures of horses and dogs. 
The horses he liked; but the dogs he did not care for 
much, for there were no bulldogs among them, not 
even a terrier. But the two pictures which took his 
fancy most were, one a man in long garments, with 
little children and their mothers round him, who was 
laying his hand upon the children’s heads. That was 
a very pretty picture, Tom thought, to hang in a lady’s 
room. For he could see that it was a lady’s room by 
the dresses which lay about. The other picture was 
that of a man nailed to a cross, which surprised Tom 
much. 

The next thing he saw was a washstand with 
pitchers and basins, and soap and brushes, and towels, 
and a large bathtub full of clean water — what a heap 
of things all for washing ! ‘‘She must be a very dirty 
lady,” thought Tom, “ to want as much scrubbing as 
all that. But she must be very cunning to put the 
dirt out of the way so well afterwards, for I don’t see 
a speck about the room, not even on the towels.” 


Water-Babies 


19 

Then, looking toward the bed, he saw that dirty 
lady, and held his breath with astonishment. 

Under the snow-white coverlet, upon the snow- 
white pillow, lay the most beautiful girl that Tom had 
ever seen. Her cheeks were almost as white as the 
pillow, and her hair was like threads of gold spread 
all about over the bed. She might have been as old 
as Tom, or maybe a year or two older; but Tom did 
not think of that. He thought only of her delicate 
skin and golden hair, and wondered whether she was 
a real live person, or one of the wax dolls he had seen 
in the shops. But, when he saw her breathe, he made 
up his mind that she was alive, and stood staring at 
her as if she had been an angel out of heaven. 

“No, she cannot be dirty. She never could have been 
dirty,’’ thought Tom to himself. Then he thought, 
“And are all people like that when they are washed?” 

He looked at his own wrist and tried to rub the soot 
off, and wondered whether it ever would come off. 
“Certainly I should look much prettier then, if I grew 
at all like her.” 

Looking round, he suddenly saw, standing close 
to him, a little ugly, black, ragged figure, with bleared 
eyes and grinning white teeth. He turned on it an- 
grily. What did such a little black ape want in that 


20 


Water-Babies 


sweet young lady’s room? And behold it was him- 
self, reflected in a great mirror. 

Tom, for the first time in his life, found out that he 
was dirty ; and burst into tears with shame and anger ; 
and turned to sneak up the chimney and hide ; and 
upset the fender and threw the fire-irons down with 
a noise as of ten thousand tin kettles tied to ten thou- 
sand mad dogs’ tails. 

Up jumped the little white lady in her bed, and, 
seeing Tom, screamed as shrill as any peacock. In 
rushed a stout old nurse from the next room, and, seeing 
Tom likewise, made up her mind that he had come to 
rob, plunder, destroy, and burn; and dashed at him, 
as he lay over the fender, so fast that she caught him 
by the jacket. 

But she did not hold him. Tom had been in a 
policeman’s hands many a time, and out of them too; 
and he would have been ashamed to face his friends 
forever if he had been stupid enough to be caught by 
an old woman : so he doubled under the good lady’s 
arm, and was across the room and out of the window 
in a moment. 

He did not need to drop out, though he would have 
done so bravely enough; nor even to let himself 
down a spout, which would have been an old game to 



The nurse catches Tom by the jacket 























f'^i '• >^, 1 



Water-Babies 


21 


him ; for once he got up by a spout to the church roof, 
he said to take jackdaws’ eggs, but the policeman said 
to steal lead ; and, when he was seen on high, sat there 
till the sun got too hot, and came down by another 
spout, leaving the policeman to go back to the station- 
house and eat his dinner. 

But all under the window spread a tree, with great 
leaves, and sweet white flowers almost as big as his 
head. It was a magnolia, I suppose, but Tom knew 
nothing about that. Down the tree he went, like a cat, 
and across the garden lawn, and over the iron railings, 
and up the park toward the wood, leaving the old 
nurse to scream murder and fire at the window. 

The under gardener, mowing, saw Tom, and threw 
down his scythe, caught his leg in it, and cut his shin 
open ; but in his hurry he never knew it, and gave chase 
to Tom. The dairymaid heard the noise, got the churn 
between her knees, and tumbled over it, spilling all the 
cream; and yet she jumped up and gave chase to 
Tom. A groom cleaning Sir John’s riding horse at 
the stables let him go loose, ran out, and gave chase 
to Tom. Grimes upset the soot-sack in the new- 
gravelled yard; but he ran out and gave chase to 
Tom. The old steward opened the park gate in such 
a hurry that he hung his pony’s chin upon the spikes, 


22 


Water-Babies 


but he jumped off and gave chase to Tom. The 
ploughman left his horses at the headland, and one 
jumped over the fence and pulled the other into the 
ditch, plough and all; but he ran on and gave chase 
to Tom. The keeper, who was taking a stoat out of 
a trap, let the stoat go, and caught his own finger; 
but he jumped up and ran after Tom, and considering 
what he said, and how he looked, I should have been 
sorry for Tom if he had caught him. Sir John looked 
out of his study window (for he was an early old gentle- 
man), and up at the nurse, and a marten dropt mud in 
his eye; and yet he ran out and gave chase to Tom. 
The Irishwoman, too, was walking up to the house to 
beg — she must have got round by some byway : but 
she threw away her bundle and gave chase to Tom 
hkewise. Only my Lady did not give chase ; for, when 
she had put her head out of the window, her night cap 
fell into the garden, and she had to ring up her lady’s- 
maid and send her down for it privately ; which quite 
put her out of the running, so that she came in nowhere. 

Never before was there heard at Harthover Place such 
a noise, hubbub, babel, shindy, hullabaloo, and total 
contempt of dignity, repose, and order, as that day, 
when Grimes, the gardener, the groom, the dairymaid. 
Sir John, the steward, the ploughman, the keeper, and 


Water-Babies 


23 


the Irishwoman, all ran up the park, shouting, “Stop 
thief! ” in the belief that Tom had at least a thousand 
pounds’ worth of jewels in his pockets; and the very 
magpies and jays followed Tom up, screaking and 
screaming, as if he were a hunted fox beginning to 
droop his brush. 

All the while Tom paddled up the park with his 
little bare feet, like a small black gorilla fleeing to the 
forest. Alas for him 1 there was no big father gorilla 
therein to take his part. 

However, Tom did not remember ever having had 
a father; so he did not look for one, and expected to 
have to take care of himself ; while, as for running, he 
could keep up for a couple of miles with any stage- 
coach, if there was the chance of a copper or a cigar- 
end, and turn coach wheels on his hands and feet ten 
times following. Wherefore his pursuers found it 
very difficult to catch him. 

Tom, of course, made for the wood. He had never 
been in a wood in his life : but he was sharp enough to 
know that he might hide in a bush, or climb a tree, 
and, altogether, had more chance there than in the 
open. 

But when he got into the wood, he found it a very 
different sort of place from what he had fancied. He 


H 


Water-Babies 


pushed into a thick cover of rhododendrons, and found 
himself at once caught in a trap. The boughs laid 
hold of his legs and arms, poked him in his face and his 
stomach, made him shut his eyes tight (though that 
was no great loss, for he could not see at best a yard 
before his nose) ; and, when he got through the rhodo- 
dendrons, the hassock-grass and sedges tumbled him 
over, and cut his fingers most spitefully. 

“I must get out of this,’’ thought Tom, ^‘or I shall 
stay here till somebody comes to help me — which 
is just what I don’t want.” 

But how to get out was the difficult matter. And 
indeed I don’t think he would ever have got out at all, 
if he had not suddenly run his head against a wall. 

Running your head against a wall is not pleasant, 
especially if it is a loose wall, with the stones all set on 
edge, and a sharp-cornered one hits you between the 
eyes and makes you see all manner of stars. The 
stars are very beautiful, certainly; but unfortunately 
they go in the twenty-thousandth part of a second, 
and the pain which comes after them does not. Tom 
hurt his head; but he was a brave boy and did not 
mind that. Over the wall he went, like a squirrel. 

And there he was, out on the great grouse-moors, 
which the country folk called Ktarthover Fell — heather 


Water-Babies 


and bog and rock, stretching away and up, up to the 
very sky. 

Tom was a cunning little fellow — as cunning as an 
old Exmoor stag. Though he was but ten years old, 
he had lived longer than most stags, and had more 
wits to start with into the bargain. 

So the first thing he did when he was over the wall 
was to make the neatest double sharp to his right, and 
run along behind the wall for nearly half a mile. 

Whereby Sir John, and the keeper, and the steward, 
and the gardener, and the ploughman, and the dairy- 
maid, and all the hue-and-cry together, went on ahead 
half a mile in the very opposite direction, and inside 
the wall, leaving him a mile off on the outside, while 
Tom heard their shouts die away in the wood, and 
chuckled to himself merrily. 

At last he came to a dip in the land and went to 
the bottom of it, and then he turned away from the 
wall and up the moor; for he knew that had put 
a hill between him and his enemies, and he could go 
on without their seeing him. 

But the Irishwoman, alone of them all, had seen 
which way Tom went. She had kept ahead of every 
one the whole time : and yet she neither walked nor 
ran. She went along quite smoothly and gracefully. 


26 


Water-Babies 


while her feet twinkled past each other so fast that 
you could not see which was foremost ; till every one 
asked the other who the strange woman was, and all 
agreed that she must be in league with Tom. 

But when she came to the woods they lost sight of 
her. For she went quietly over the wall after Tom, 
and followed him wherever he went. Sir John and 
the rest saw no more of her, and out of sight was out 
of mind. 

Now Tom was right away into the heather. There 
were rocks and stones lying about everywhere; and 
the moor as he went upward grew more and more 
broken and hilly, but not so rough but that little 
Tom could jog along well enough, and find time, too, 
to stare about at the strange place, which was Hke a 
new world to him. 

He saw great spiders there, with crowns and crosses 
marked on their backs, who sat in the middle of their 
webs, and, when they saw Tom coming, shook them 
so fast that they became invisible. Then he saw 
lizards, brown and gray and green, and thought they 
were snakes, and would sting him : but they were as 
much frightened as he, and shot away into the heath. 
Then, under a rock, he saw a pretty sight — a great 
brown sharp-nosed creature, with a white tag to her 


Water-Babies 


27 


brush, and round her, four or five smutty little cubs, 
the funniest fellows Tom ever saw. She lay on her 
back, rolling about, and stretching out her legs and 
head and tail in the bright sunshine; and the cubs 
jumped over her, and ran round her, and nibbled her 
paws, and lugged her about by the tail; and she 
seemed to enjoy it mightily. But one selfish little 
fellow stole away from the rest to a dead crow close 
by, and dragged it off to hide it, though it was nearly 
as big as he was. Whereat all his little brothers set 
off after him in full cry, and saw Tom; and then all 
ran back, and up jumped Mrs. Vixen and caught one 
up in her mouth, and the rest toddled after her and 
into a dark crack in the rocks ; and there was an end 
of the show. 

Next he had a fright; for as he scrambled up a 
sandy brow — whirr-poof -poof-cock-cock-kick — some- 
thing went off in his face with a most horrid noise. 
He thought the ground had blown up. 

When he opened his eyes (for he shut them very 
tight), it was only an old cock-grouse, who had been 
washing himself in sand for want of water, and who, 
when Tom had all but trodden on him, jumped up 
with a noise like an express train, leaving his wife and 
children to shift for themselves, and went off scream- 


28 


Water-Babies 


ing, ^Xur-ru-u-uck, cur-ru-u-uck — murder, thieves, 
fire — cur-u-uck-cock-kick — the end of the world is 
come — kick-kick-cock-kick! ’’ 

He was always fancying that the end of the world 
was come when anything happened which was farther 
off than the end of his own nose. But the end of 
the world was not come, though the old grouse-cock 
was quite certain of it. 

So the old grouse came back to his wife and family 
an hour afterwards, and said solemnly, Cock-cock- 
kick; my dears, the end of the world is not quite 
come; but I assure you it is coming the day after 
to-morrow — cock! ’’ 

But his wife had heard that so often that she knew 
all about it, and a little more. Besides she was the 
mother of a family, and had seven little birds to 
wash and feed every day; and that made her very 
practical and a little sharp- tempered. All she 
answered was, “Kick-kick-kick — go and catch 
spiders, go and catch spiders — kick!’’ 

Tom went on, and on, he hardly knew why: but 
he liked the great, wide, strange place, and the cool, 
fresh, bracing air. He went more and more slowly 
as he got higher up the hill ; for now the ground grew 
very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy 


Water-Babies 


29 


heather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, 
just like ill-made pavements, with deep cracks be- 
tween the stones, and ledges filled with ferns. So he 
had to hop from stone to stone, and now and then he 
slipped in between and hurt his little bare toes, 
though they were tolerably tough ones : but still he 
would go on and up. 

What would Tom have said, if he had seen, walk- 
ing over the moor behind him, the very same Irish- 
woman who had taken his part on the road? But 
whether it was that he looked too little behind him, 
or whether it was that she kept out of sight behind 
the rocks and knolls, he never saw her, though she 
saw him. 

Now he began to get a little hungry, and very 
thirsty; for he had run a long way, and the sun had 
risen high in heaven, and the rock was as hot as an 
oven, and the air danced reels over it till every- 
thing round seemed quivering and melting in the glare. 

But he could see nothing to eat anywhere, and 
still less to drink. 

The heath was full of bilberries and whimberries: 
but they were only in flower yet, for it was June. As 
for water, who can find that on the top of a limestone 
rock? Now and then he passed by a deep dark hole. 


30 


Water-Babies 


going down into the earth, as if it was the chimney 
of some dwarf^s house underground; and more than 
once, as he passed, he could hear water falling, trick- 
ling, tinkling, many many feet below. How he longed 
to get down to it, and cool his baked lips ! But, 
brave little chimney-sweep as he was, he dared not 
climb down such chimneys as those. 

So he went on, and on, till his head spun round 
with the heat, and he thought he heard church bells 
ringing, a long way off. 

‘‘Ah!’’ he thought, “where there is a church there 
will be houses and people ; and perhaps some one 
will give me a bit and a sup.” 

So he set off again, to look for the church; for he 
was sure that he heard the bells quite plain. In a 
minute more, when he looked round, he stopped 
again, and said, “Why, what a big place the world 
is!” 

So it was; for, from the top of the mountain, he 
could see, behind him, far below, Harthover, and the 
dark woods, and the shining salmon river ; and on 
his left, far below, was the town and the smoking 
chimneys of the collieries; and far, far away, the 
river widened to the shining sea; and little white 
specks, which were ships, lay on its bosom. Before 


Water-Babies 


31 


him lay, spread out like a map, great plains, and 
farms, and villages, amid dark knots of trees. They 
all seemed at his very feet; but he had sense to see 
that they were long miles away. 

To his right rose moor after moor, hill after hill, 
till they faded away, blue into blue sky. But be- 
tween him and those moors lay something, to which, 
as soon as Tom saw it, he determined to go. 

A deep, deep green and rocky valley, very narrow, 
and filled with trees : but through them, hundreds of 
feet below him, he could see a clear stream glance. 
Oh, if he could but get down to that stream ! Then, 
by the stream, he saw the roof of a little cottage, and 
a little garden set out in squares and beds. And 
there was a tiny little red thing moving in the garden, 
no bigger than a fly. As Tom looked down, he saw 
that it was a woman in a red petticoat. Ah ! per- 
haps she would give him something to eat. And 
there were the church bells ringing again. Surely 
there must be a village down there. Well, nobody 
would know him, or what had happened at Harthover 
Place. The news could not have got there yet, even 
if Sir John had set all the policemen in the county 
after him ; and he could get down there in five minutes. 

Tom was quite right about the hue-and-cry not 


32 


Water-Babies 


having got thither; for he had come, without know- 
ing it, the best part of ten miles from Harthover; 
but he was wrong about getting down in five minutes, 
for the cottage was more than a mile off, and a good 
thousand feet below. 

However, down he went, like a brave little man 
as he was, though he was very footsore, and tired, 
and hungry, and thirsty; while the church bells rang 
so loud he began to think that they must be inside 
his own head, and the river chimed and tinkled far 
below. 

So Tom went down; and all the while he never 
saw the Irishwoman coming down behind him. 



A MILE off, and a thousand feet down. So Tom 
found it ; though it seemed as if he could have 
chucked a pebble on to the back of the woman in the 
red petticoat who was weeding in the garden, or even 
across the dale to the rocks beyond. 


33 



34 


Water-Babies 


For the bottom of the valley was just one field 
broad, and on the other side ran the stream; and, 
above it, gray crag, gray down, gray moor, walled up 
to heaven. 

A quiet, silent, rich, happy place; a narrow crack 
cut deep into the earth; so deep, and so out of the 
way, that the bad bogies can hardly find it. The 
name of the place is Vendale. 

Tom went down three hundred feet of steep 
heather, mixed with loose brown gritstone as rough 
as a file; which was not pleasant to his poor little 
heels, as he came, bump, stump, jump, down the 
steep. And still he thought he could throw a stone 
into the garden. 

Then he went down three hundred feet of lime- 
stone terraces, one below the other as straight as 
if a carpenter had ruled them with his ruler and then 
cut them out with his chisel. There was no heath 
there, but — 

First a little grass slope covered with the prettiest 
flowers, rockrose and saxifrage, and thyme and basil, 
and all sorts of sweet herbs. 

Then bump down a two-foot step of limestone. 

Then another bit of grass and flowers. 

Then bump down a one-foot step. 


Water-Babies 


35 

Then another bit of grass and flowers for fifty 
yards, as steep as the house-roof. 

Then another step of stone, ten feet high; and 
there he had to stop himself, and crawl along the 
edge to find a crack; for, if he had rolled over, he 
would have rolled right into the old woman’s garden 
and frightened her out of her wits. 

Then, when he had found a dark narrow crack, 
full of green-stalked fern, and had crawled down 
through it with knees and elbows, as he would down 
a chimney, there was another grass slope, and another 
step, and so on. 

At last he came to a bank of beautiful shrubs; 
whitebeam, and mountain-ash, and oak; and below 
them cliff and crag, cliff and crag, with great beds of 
crown-ferns and wood-sedge ; while through the shrubs 
he could see the stream sparkling, and hear it murmur 
on the white pebbles. He did not know that it was 
three hundred feet below. 

You would have been giddy, perhaps, at looking 
down, but Tom was not. When he found himself 
on the top of a high cliff, instead of sitting down and 
crying, he said, “Ah, this will just suit me!” though 
he was very tired ; and down he went, by stock and 
stone, sedge and ledge, bush and rush, as if he had 


36 


Water-Babies 


been born a jolly little black ape with four hands 
instead of two. 

All the while he never saw the Irishwoman coming 
down behind him. 

But he was getting terribly tired now. The burn- 
ing sun on the fells had sucked him up ; but the damp 
heat of the woody crag sucked him up still more; 
and the perspiration ran off the ends of his fingers 
and toes, and washed him cleaner than he had been 
for a whole year. 

At last he got to the bottom. But, behold, it was 
not the bottom — as people usually find when they 
are coming down a mountain. For at the foot of 
the crag were heaps and heaps of fallen limestone, of 
every size from that of your head to that of a stage- 
wagon, with holes between them full of sweet heath- 
fern; and before Tom got through them he was out 
in the bright sunshine again; and then he felt, sud- 
denly, that he was tired out. 

He could not get on. The sun was burning, and 
yet he felt chill all over. He was quite empty, and 
yet he felt quite sick. There were but two hundred 
yards of smooth pasture between him and the cot- 
tage, and yet he could not walk down it. He 
could hear the stream murmuring only one field 


Water-Babies 


37 

beyond the cottage, and yet it seemed to him as if 
the stream was a hundred miles off. 

He lay down on the grass till the beetles ran over 
him, and the flies settled on his nose. I don’t know 
when he would have gotten up, if the gnats and the 
midges had not taken compassion on him. The 
gnats blew their trumpets so loud in his ears, and the 
midges nibbled so at his hands and face wherever 
they could find a place free from soot, that at last 
he woke up, and stumbled away down over a low 
wall, and into a narrow road, and up to the cottage 
door. 

A neat pretty cottage it was, with dipt yew hedges 
all round the garden, and yews inside too, cut into 
peacocks and trumpets and teapots and all kinds of 
queer shapes. Out of the open door came a noise 
like that of the frogs, when they know that it is going 
to be scorching hot to-morrow. 

He went slowly up to the open door, which was all 
hung round with clematis and roses ; and then peeped 
in, half afraid. 

There sat by the empty fireplace, which was filled 
with a pot of sweet herbs, the nicest old woman that 
ever was seen, in her red petticoat, and short dimity 
jacket, and clean white cap with a black silk hand- 


38 Water-Babies 

kerchief over it tied under her chin. At her feet sat 
the grandfather of all the cats; and opposite her sat, 
on two benches, twelve or fourteen neat chubby little 
children learning their A B C’s; and gabble enough 
they made about it. 

Such a pleasant cottage it was, with a shiny clean 
stone floor, and curious old prints on the walls, and 
an old black oak sideboard full of bright pewter and 
brass dishes, and a cuckoo clock in the corner which 
began shouting as soon as Tom appeared : not that 
it was frightened at Tom, but that it was just eleven 
o’clock. 

All the children started at Tom’s dirty black figure ; 
the girls began to cry, and the boys began to laugh, 
and all pointed at him rudely ; but Tom was too tired 
to care for that. 

“What art thou, and what dost want?” cried 
the old dame. “A chimney-sweep! Away with 
thee 1 I’ll have no sweeps here.” 

“Water,” said poor little Tom, quite faint. 

“Water! There’s plenty i’ the stream,” she said, 
quite sharply. 

“But I can’t get there; I’m most dead with hun- 
ger and thirst.” And Tom sank down on the door- 
step and laid his head against the post. 



The old school dame in Vendale 











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Water-Babies 


39 


The old dame looked at him through her spec- 
tacles one minute, and two, and three ; and then 
she said, ^‘He^s sick; and a bairn’s a bairn, sweep 
or none.” 

Water,” said Tom. 

“God forgive me!” and she put by her spectacles, 
and rose, and came to Tom. “Water’s bad for thee; 
I’ll give thee milk.” And she toddled off into the next 
room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread. 

Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then 
looked up, revived. 

“Where didst come from?” said the dame. 

“Over Fell, there,” said Tom, and pointed up into 
the sky. 

“Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? 
Art sure thou art not lying?” 

“Why should I?” said Tom, and leant his head 
against the post. 

“And how got ye up there?” 

“I came from Harthover Place,” and Tom was so 
tired and desperate he had no heart or time to think 
of a story, so he told all the truth in a few words. 

“Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been 
stealing, then?” 

“No.” 


40 


Water-Babies 


‘‘Bless thy little heart ! and 111 warrant not. Away 
from the Harthover Place, and over Harthover 
Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard 
the like? Why dost not eat thy bread 

“I can’t.’’ 

“It’s good enough, for I made it myself.” 

“I can’t,” said Tom, and he laid his head on his 
knees, and then asked, “Is it Sunday?” 

“No; why should it be?” 

“Because I hear the church bells ringing so.” 

“Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn’s sick. Come 
wi’ me, and I’ll wrap thee up somewhere. If thou 
wert a bit cleaner I’d put thee in my own bed. Come 
along.” 

But, when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired 
and giddy that she had to help him and lead him. 

She put him in an outhouse on soft sweet hay 
and an old rug, and bade him sleep off his walk, and 
she would come to him when school was over, in an 
hour’s time. 

So she went in, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at 
once. 

But Tom did not fall asleep. 

Instead he turned and tossed and kicked about in 
the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he 


Water-Babies 


41 


longed to get into the river and cool himself ; and 
then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard 
the little white lady crying to him, “Oh, you^re so 
dirty; go and be washed;’^ and then that he heard 
the Irishwoman saying, “Those that wish to be clean, 
clean they will be/’ 

Then he heard the church bells ring so loud, close 
to him, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite 
of what the old dame had said; and he would go to 
church, and see what a church was like inside, for he 
had never been in one in all his life. But the people 
would never let him come in, all over soot and dirt 
like that. He must go to the river and wash first. 
He said out loud again and again, though being half 
asleep he did not know it, “I must be clean, I must 
be clean.” 

All of a sudden he found himself, not in the out- 
house on the hay, but in the middle of a meadow, 
over the road, with the stream just before him, say- 
ing continually, “I must be clean, I must be clean.” 

He had got there on his own legs, between sleep and 
awake, as children often will get out of bed and go 
about the room, when they are not quite well. But 
he was not a bit surprised, and went on to the bank 
of the brook, and lay down on the grass, and looked 


42 


Water-Babies 


into the clear limestone water, with every pebble at 
the bottom bright and clean, while the little silver 
trout dashed about in fright at the sight of his black 
face ; and he dipped his hand in and found it so cool ; 
and he said, ‘‘I will be a fish ; I will swim in the water ; 
I must be clean, I must be clean.’’ 

So he pulled off his clothes in such haste that he 
tore some of them, which was easy enough with such 
ragged old things. And he put his hot sore feet 
into the water, and then his legs ; and the farther he 
went in the more the church bells rang in his head. 

‘‘Ah,” said Tom, “I must be quick and wash my- 
self. The bells are ringing quite loud now ; and they 
will stop soon, and then the door will be shut, and I 
shall never be able to get in at all.” 

Tom was mistaken: for in England the church 
doors are left open all service time for everybody 
who likes to come in, even if he were a Turk or a 
heathen; and if any man dared to turn him out, as 
long as he behaved quietly, the good old English law 
would punish that man for ordering any peaceable 
person out of God’s house, which belongs to all 
ahke. But Tom did not know that, any more than 
he knew a great deal more which people ought to 
know. 


Water-Babies 


43 

And all the while he never saw the Irishwoman : 
not behind him this time, but ahead. 

For, just before he came to the river side, she had 
stepped down into the cool clear water ; and her shawl 
and her petticoat floated off her, and the green water- 
weeds floated round her sides, and the white water- 
hlies floated round her head, and the fairies of the 
stream came up from the bottom and bore her away 
and down on their arms; for she was the Queen 
of them all. 

“Where have you been?’’ they asked her. 

“I have been smoothing sick folks’ pillows, and 
whispering sweet dreams into their ears ; opening 
cottage casements to let out the stifling air; coaxing 
little children away from gutters and foul pools 
where fever breeds ; doing all I can to help those who 
will not help themselves: and little enough that is, 
and weary work for me. But I have brought you a 
new little brother, and watched him safe all the way 
here.” 

Then all the fairies laughed for joy at the thought 
that they had a little brother coming. 

“But mind, maidens, he must not see you, or know 
that you are here. He is but a savage now, and like 
the beasts which perish; and from the beasts which 


44 


Water-Babies 


perish he must learn. So you must not play with 
him, nor speak to him, nor let him see you : but only 
keep him from being harmed.’’ 

Then the fairies were sad, because they could not 
play with their new brother, but they always did 
what they were told. 

Their Queen floated away down the river. But all 
this Tom, of course, never saw nor heard : and per- 
haps, if he had, it would have made little difference, 
for he was so hot and thirsty, and longed so to be clean 
for once, that he tumbled himself as quick as he could 
into the clear cool stream. 

He had not been in it two minutes before he fell 
fast asleep into the quietest, sunniest, cosiest sleep 
that ever he had in his life; and he dreamt about 
the green meadows by which he had walked that 
morning, and the tall elm trees, and the sleeping 
cows; and after that he dreamt of nothing at all. 

The reason of his falling into such a delightful 
sleep is very simple; and yet hardly any one has 
found it out. It was merely that the fairies took him. 

The kind old dame came back at twelve, when 
school was over, to look at Tom; but there was no 
Tom there. She looked about for his footprints ; but 
the ground was so hard that there was no mark. 


Water-Babies 


45 


So the old dame went in quite sulky, thinking that 
little Tom had tricked her with a false story, and 
shammed ill, and then run away. 

But she altered her mind the next day. For, 
when Sir John and the rest of them had run them- 
selves out of breath, and lost Tom, they went back, 
looking very foohsh. They looked more foolish still 
when Sir John heard more of the story from the nurse ; 
and more foolish still, again, when they heard the 
whole story from Miss Ellie, the little lady in white. 
All she had seen was a little black chimney-sweep, 
crying and sobbing, and going to get up the chimney 
again. Of course, she was very much frightened; 
and no wonder. But that was all. The boy had 
taken nothing in the room. By the mark of his little 
sooty feet they could see that he had never been off 
the hearth-rug till the nurse caught hold of him. 
It was all a mistake. 

So Sir John told Grimes to go home, and promised 
him five shillings if he would bring the boy quietly 
to him, without beating him, that he might be sure 
of the truth. He took for granted, and Grimes too, 
that Tom had made his way home. 

But no Tom came back to Mr. Grimes that even- 
ing; and Mr. Grimes went to the police-office to 


46 


Water-Babies 


tell them to look out for the boy. But no Tom was 
heard of. As for his having gone over those great 
fells to Vendale, they no more dreamed of that than 
of his having gone to the moon. 

So Mr. Grimes came to Harthover next day with 
a very sour face; but, when he got there, Sir John 
was over the hills and far away; and Mr. Grimes 
had to sit in the outer servants’ hall all day, and 
drink strong ale to wash away his sorrows; and 
they were washed away long before Sir John came 
back. 

Good Sir John had slept very badly that night; 
and he said to his lady: ^‘My dear, the boy must have 
got over into the grouse-moors and lost himself ; 
and he lies very heavily on my conscience, poor little 
lad. But I know what I will do.” 

So, at five the next morning, up he got, and into 
his shooting jacket and gaiters, and into the stable- 
yard, like a fine old English gentleman, with a face 
as red as a rose, and a hand as hard as a table, and a 
back as broad as a bullock’s; and bade them bring 
his shooting pony, and the keeper to come on his 
pony, and the huntsman, and the under-keeper with 
the bloodhound in a leash — a great dog as tall as a 
calf. They took the hound up to the place where 


Water-Babies 


47 

Tom had gone into the wood ; and there he lifted up 
his mighty voice, and told them all he knew. 

Then he took them to the place where Tom had 
climbed the wall; and they shoved it down, and all 
got through. 

And then the wise dog took them over the moor, 
and over the fell, step by step, very slowly; for 
the scent was a day old, you know, and very light 
from the heat and drought. That was why cunning 
old Sir John started at five in the morning. 

At last he came to the top of Lewthwaite Crag, 
and there the dog bayed, and looked up in their faces, 
as much as to say, ‘‘I tell you he is gone down here 

They could hardly believe that Tom would have 
gone so far; and, when they looked at that awful 
cliff, they could never believe that he would have 
dared to face it. But if the dog said so, it must be 
true. 

‘‘Heaven forgive us!’’ said Sir John. “If we 
find him at all, we shall find him lying at the bottom,” 
and he slapped his great hand on his great thigh, and 
said: “Who will go down over Lewthwaite Crag, 
and see if that boy is alive? Oh that I were twenty 
years younger, and I would go down myself!” And 
so he would, as well as any sweep in the county. 


48 


Water-Babies 


Then he said, ^‘Twenty pounds to the man who 
brings me that boy alive I’’ and, as was his way, 
what he said he meant. 

Among the lot was a little groom-boy, a very little 
groom indeed; and he was the same who had ridden 
up the court and told Tom to come to Harthover; 
and he said, ‘‘Twenty pounds or none, I will go 
down over Lewthwaite Crag, if iCs only for the poor 
boy’s sake; for he was as civil spoken a little chap 
as ever climbed a flue.” 

So down over Lewthwaite Crag he went. A very 
smart groom he was at the top, and a very shabby 
one at the bottom; for he tore his gaiters, and he 
tore his breeches, and he tore his jacket, and he burst 
his braces, and he burst his boots, and he lost his 
hat, and, what was worst of all, he lost his shirt pin, 
which he prized very much ; for it was gold, and there 
was a figure at the top of it of t’ould mare, as natural 
as life. So it was a really severe loss; but he never 
saw anything of Tom. 

All the while Sir John and the rest were riding 
round, full three miles to the right, and back, to get 
into Vendale and to the foot of the crag. 

When they came to the old dame’s school, all the 
children came out to see. The old dame came out 


Water-Babies 


49 

too; and when she saw Sir John she curtsied very 
low, for she was a tenant of his. 

‘‘Well, dame, and how are you?’’ said Sir John. 

“Blessings on you as broad as your back, Harth- 
over,” says she — she didn’t call him Sir John, but 
only Harthover, for that is the fashion in the North 
country — “and welcome into Vendale: but you’re 
no hunting the fox this time of the year?” 

“I am hunting, and strange game too,” said he. 

“Blessings on your heart, and what makes you 
look so sad the morn?” 

“I’m looking for a lost child, a chimney-sweep 
that is run away.” 

“Oh Harthover, Harthover!” says she, “ye were 
always a just man and a merciful; and ye’ll no 
harm the poor little lad if I give you tidings of 
him?” 

“Not I, not I, dame. I’m afraid we hunted him 
out of the house all on a miserable mistake, and the 
hound has followed him to the top of Lewthwaite 
Crag, and ” 

Whereat the old dame broke out crying, without 
letting him finish his story. 

“So he told me the truth after all, poor little 
dear! Ah! first thoughts are best, and a body’s 


Water-Babies 


SO 

heart’ll guide them right, if they will but hearken to 
it.” And then she told Sir John all. 

‘‘Bring the dog here, and lay him on,” said Sir 
John without another word, and he set his teeth very 
hard. 

The dog at once went away at the back of the 
cottage, over the road, and over the meadow, and 
through a bit of alder copse ; and there, on an alder 
stump, they saw Tom’s clothes lying. Then they 
knew as much about it all as there was any need to 
know. 

And Tom? 

Ah, now comes the most wonderful part of this 
story. Tom, when he woke, found himself swimming 
about in the stream, being about four inches long, and 
having a set of gills just like those of a sucking eft,^ 
which he mistook for a lace frill, till he pulled at 
them, found he hurt himself, and made up his mind 
that they were part of himself and best left alone. 

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water- 
baby. 

The keeper, and the groom, and Sir John were very 
unhappy (Sir John at least) when they found a black 
thing in the water, and said it was Tom’s body, and 

* A small animal something like a lizard. 


Water-Babies 


SI 

that he had been drowned. They were utterly mis- 
taken. Tom was quite alive ; and cleaner and 
merrier than he ever had been before. The fairies had 
washed him in the swift river so thoroughly that 
not only his dirt, but his whole husk and shell had 
been washed quite off him, and the pretty little real 
Tom was washed out of the inside of it, and swam 
away. 

But good Sir John took it into his head that Tom 
was drowned. When they looked into his pockets 
and found no jewels there, nor money — nothing but 
three marbles, and a brass button with a string to it, 
Sir John did something as hke crying as ever he did 
in his life, and blamed himself more bitterly than he 
need have done. He cried, and the groom-boy cried, 
and the huntsman cried, and the dame cried, and 
the little girl cried, and the dairymaid cried, and the 
old nurse cried (for it was somewhat her fault), and 
my lady cried, but the keeper did not cry, though he 
had been so good-natured to Tom the morning before ; 
for he was so dried up with running after poachers 
that you could no more get tears out of him than milk 
out of leather : and Grimes did not cry, for Sir John 
gave him ten pounds. The little girl would not play 
with her dolls for a whole week, and never forgot poor 


Water-Babies 


Tom. Soon my lady put a pretty tombstone over 
Tom’s shell in the httle churchyard in Vendale, where 
the old dalesmen all sleep side by side between the 
limestone crags. The dame decked it with garlands 
every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not 
stir abroad ; then the little children decked it for her. 
And always she sung an old old song, as she sat spin- 
ning what she called her wedding-dress. The children 
could not understand it, but they liked it none the 
less for that; for it was very sweet, and very sad. 
These are the words of it : — 

When all the world is young, lad, 

And all the trees are green; 

And every goose a swan, lad. 

And every lass a queen; 

Then hey for boot and horse, lad, 

And round the world away; 

Young blood must have its course, lad, 

And every dog his day. 

When all the world is old, lad, 

And all the trees are brown ; 

And all the sport is stale, lad, 

And all the wheels run down; 

Creep home, and take your place there. 

The spent and maimed among: 

God grant you find one face there, 

You loved when all was young. 


Water-Babies 


S3 


Those are the words, but they are only the body of 
it. The soul of the song was the dear old woman’s 
sweet face, and sweet voice, and the sweet old air to 
which she sang ; and that, alas ! one cannot put on 
paper. At last she grew so stiff and lame that the 
angels were forced to carry her ; and they helped her 
on with her wedding-dress, and carried her up over 
Harthover Fell, and a long way beyond that too; 
and there was a new schoolmistress in Vendale. 

All the while Tom was swimming about in the river, 
with a pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck, 
as lively as a grig,^ and as clean as a fresh-run salmon.^ 

^ It is generally considered that a grig is either a cricket or a grass- 
hopper, both of which are lively and musical. 

* One that has just come into fresh water from the sea. 



Ill 

T om was now quite amphibious,^ and what is 
better still, he was clean. 

He did not remember having ever been dirty. In- 

^ An amphibious animal is one that can live both on the land and 
in the water. 


54 


Water-Babies 


SS 


deed, he did not remember any of his old troubles, 
being tired, or hungry, or beaten, or sent up dark 
chimneys. Since that sweet sleep he had forgotten 
all about his master, and Harthover Place, and the 
little white girl, and all that had happened to him 
when he lived before; and he had forgotten all the 
bad words which he had learned from Grimes and 
the rude boys with whom he used to play. 

Tom was very happy in the water. He had been 
sadly overworked in the land-world; and so now, to 
make up for that, he had nothing but holidays in the 
water-world for a long, long time to come. He had 
nothing to do but enjoy himself, and look at all 
the pretty things which are to be seen in the cool clear 
water-world, where the sun is never too hot, and the 
frost is never too cold. 

What did he live on? Water-cresses, perhaps; or 
perhaps water-gruel and water-milk. 

Sometimes he went along the smooth gravel water- 
ways looking at the crickets^ which ran in and out 
among the stones, as rabbits do on land ; or he climbed 
over the ledges of rock, and saw the sand-pipes ^ hang- 

^ These were water-crickets, a kind of creeping grub. 

2 Little animals which incase themselves with grains of sand. A 
slimy substance on their bodies causes the sand to stick. 


56 


Water-Babies 


ing in thousands, with every one of them a pretty 
little head and legs peeping out; or he went into a 
still corner, and watched the caddises eating dead 
sticks as greedily as you would eat plum-pudding, 
and building their houses with silk and glue. Very 
fanciful ladies they were; none of them would keep 
to the same materials for a day. One would begin 
with some pebbles; then she would stick on a piece 
of green wood ; then she found a shell and stuck it on 
too. The shell was ahve, and did not like at all being 
taken to build houses with ; but the caddis did not let 
it have any voice in the matter, being rude and 
selfish, as vain people are apt to be. Then she stuck 
on a piece of rotten wood, then a pink stone, and so 
on, till she was patched all over like an Irishman’s 
coat. Then she found a straw, five times as long as 
herself, and she stuck it on her back and marched 
about with it quite proud, though it was very incon- 
venient indeed. At that, tails became all the fash- 
ion among the caddises in that pool, and they all 
toddled about with long straws sticking out behind, 
getting between each other’s legs, and tumbling over 
each other, and looking so ridiculous that Tom laughed 
at them till he cried. But they were quite right, you 
know; for people must always follow the fashion. 


Water-Babies 


57 


Then sometimes he came to a deep still reach, and 
there he saw the water-forests. They would have 
looked to you only weeds ; but Tom, you must remem- 
ber, was so little that everything looked a hundred 
times as big to him as it does to you, just as things do 
to a minnow, who sees and catches the little water- 
creatures which you can only see in a microscope. 

In the water-forest he saw the water-monkeys and 
water-squirrels (they all had six legs, though ; almost 
everything has six legs in the water, except efts and 
water-babies) ; and nimbly enough they ran among 
the branches. There were water-flowers there too, 
in thousands, and Tom tried to pick them; but as 
soon as he touched them they drew themselves in and 
turned into knots of jelly, and then Tom saw that 
they were all alive — bells, and stars, and wheels, and 
flowers, of all beautiful shapes and colors. 

There was one wonderful little fellow, who peeped 
out of the top of a house built of round bricks. He 
had two big wheels, and one little one, all over teeth, 
spinning round and round like the wheels in a thresh- 
ing-machine. Tom stood and stared at him, to see 
what he was going to make with his machinery. And 
what do you think he was doing? Brick-making. 
With his two big wheels he swept together the mud 


58 Water-Babies 

which floated in the water. All that was nice in it he 
put into his stomach and ate ; and all the rest he put 
into the little wheel on his breast, which really was a 
round hole set with teeth; and there he spun it into 
a neat hard round brick ; and then he took it and stuck 
it on the top of his house-wall, and set to work to make 
another. Was not he a clever little fellow ? 

Tom thought so, but, when he wanted to talk to him, 
the brick-maker was much too busy to take notice of 
him. 

You must know that all the things under the water 
talk; only not such a language as ours, but such as 
horses, and dogs, and cows, and birds talk to each 
other. Tom soon learned to understand them and 
talk to them ; so that he might have had very pleasant 
company if he had only been a good boy. But I am 
sorry to say he was too like some other little boys, 
very fond of hunting and tormenting creatures for 
mere sport. Some people say that boys cannot help 
it ; that it is nature, and only a proof that we are all 
originally descended from beasts of prey. 

Tom pecked and dragged the poor water-things 
about sadly, till they were all afraid of him, and got 
out of his way, or crept into their shells ; so he had no 
one to speak to or play with. 


Water-Babies 


S9 


The water-fairies were sorry to see him so unhappy, 
and longed to teach him to be good, and to play and 
romp with him; but they had been forbidden to do 
that. Tom had to learn his lesson for himself by 
sharp experience. 

At last one day he found a caddis, and wanted it to 
peep out of its house: but its house-door was shut. 
He had never seen a caddis with a house-door before, 
so what must he do, the meddlesome little fellow, but 
pull it open. How should you like to have any one 
breaking your bedroom door in to see how you looked 
when you were in bed? Tom broke to pieces the 
door, which was the prettiest little grating of silk, 
stuck all over with shining bits of crystal; and when 
he looked in, the caddis poked out her head, and it 
had turned into just the shape of a bird’s. But when 
Tom spoke to her she could not answer ; for her mouth 
and face were tied up tight in a new night-cap of neat 
pink skin. However, if she didn’t answer, all the 
other caddises did; for they held up their hands and 
shrieked: “Oh, you horrid boy; there you are at it 
again! And she had just laid herself up for a fort- 
night’s sleep, and then she would have come out with 
such beautiful wings, and flovm about, and laid such 
lots of eggs ; and now you have broken her door, and 


6o 


Water-Babies 


she can’t mend it because her mouth is tied up, and she 
will die. Who sent you here to worry us out of our 
Uves?” 

Tom swam away. He was very much ashamed of 
himself. Then he came to a pool full of little trout, 
and began tormenting them, and trying to catch them; 
but they slipt through his fingers and jiunped clean 
out of the water in their fright. As Tom chased them, 
he came close to a great dark hover under an alder 
root, and out floushed a huge old brown trout ten times 
as big as he was, and ran right against him, and knocked 
all the breath out of his body. I don’t know which 
was the more frightened of the two. 

Then he went on, sulky and lonely, and under a bank 
he saw a very ugly dirty creature sitting, about half 
as big as himself ; which had six legs, and a big stomach, 
and a most ridiculous head with two great eyes, and 
a face just like a donkey’s. 

‘‘Oh,” said Tom, “you are an ugly fellow to be 
sure!” and he began making faces at him, and put 
his nose close to him, and halloed at him like a very 
rude boy. 

When, hey presto 1 all the thing’s donkey-face came 
off in a moment, and out popped a long arm with a 
pair of pincers at the end of it and caught Tom by the 


Water-Babies 6i 

nose. It did not hurt him much, but it held him 
quite tight. 

‘‘Yah, ah ! Oh, let me go cried Tom. 

“Then let me go,’’ said the creature. “I want to 
be quiet. I want to split.” 

Tom promised to let him alone, and he let go. “Why 
do you want to split?” said Tom. 

“Because my brothers and sisters have all split 
and turned into beautiful creatures with wings ; and 
I want to split too. Don’t speak to me. I am sure 
I shall split. I will split ! ” 

Tom stood still and watched him. And he 
swelled himself, and puffed, and stretched himself 
out stiff, and at last — crack, puff, bang — he opened 
all down his back, and then up to the top of his 
head. 

And out of his inside came the most slender, ele- 
gant creature, as soft and smooth as Tom, but very 
pale and weak, like a little child who has been ill a 
long time in a dark room. It moved its legs very 
feebly, and looked about it half ashamed, and then 
it began walking slowly up a grass stem to the top of 
the water. 

Tom was so astonished that he never said a word, 
but he stared with all his eyes. And he went up to 


62 


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the top of the water too, and peeped out to see what 
would happen. 

As the creature sat in the warm bright sun a won- 
derful change came over it. It grew strong and firm ; 
the most lovely colors began to show on its body, blue 
and yellow and black, spots and bars and rings; out 
of its back rose four great wings of bright brown gauze, 
ancTits eyes grew so large that they filled all its head, 
and shone like ten thousand diamonds. 

‘‘Oh, you beautiful creature!’’ said Tom; and he 
put out his hand to catch it. 

But the thing whirred up into the air,’ and hung 
poised on its wings a moment, and then settled down 
again by Tom quite fearless. 

“No!” it said, “you cannot catch me. I am a 
dragon-fly now, the king of all the flies; and I shall 
dance in the sunshine, and hawk over the river, and 
catch gnats, and have a beautiful wife like myself. 
I know what I shall do. Hurrah!” And he flew 
away into the air and began catching gnats. 

“Oh! come back, come back,” cried Tom, “you 
beautiful creature. I have no one to play with, and 
I am so lonely here. If you will come back I will 
never try to catch you.” 

“I don’t care whether you do or not,” said the 


Water-Babies 


63 

dragon-fly, ‘‘for you can't. But when I have had my 
dinner, and looked a little about this pretty place, I 
will come back and have a chat about all I have seen 
in my travels. Why, what a huge tree this is! and 
what huge leaves on it !" 

It was only a big dock, but you know the dragon- 
fly had never seen any but little water-trees ; starwort, 
and milfoil, and water-crowfoot, and such like; so it 
did look very big to him. Besides, he was short- 
sighted, as all dragon-flies are, and never could see a 
yard before his nose, any more than a great many 
other folks who are not half as handsome as he. 

The dragon-fly did come back, and chatted away 
with Tom. He was a little conceited about his fine 
colors and his large wings, but he had been a poor 
dirty ugly creature all his life before, so there were 
great excuses for him. He was very fond of talking 
about all the wonderful things he saw in the trees and 
the meadows, and Tom liked to listen to him, for he 
had forgotten all about them. So in a little while 
they became great friends. 

I am glad to say that Tom learned such a lesson 
that day that he did not torment creatures for a long 
time after. The caddises grew quite tame, and used 
to tell him strange stories about the way they built 


64 


Water-Babies 


their houses, and changed their skins, and turned at 
last into winged flies ; till Tom began to long to change 
his skin, and have wings like them some day. 

The trout and he made it up (for trout very soon 
forget, if they have been frightened and hurt). So 
Tom used to play with them at hare and hounds, and 
great fun they had ; and he used to try to leap out of 
the water, head over heels, as they did before a shower 
came on ; but somehow he never could manage it. 
He liked most, though, to see them rising at the flies, 
as they sailed round and round under the shadow of 
the great oak, where the beetles fell flop into the water, 
and the green caterpillars let themselves down from 
the boughs by silk ropes and then changed their foolish 
minds, and hauled themselves up into the tree, rolling 
up the rope in a ball between their paws; but why 
they should take so much trouble about it no one can 
tell. 

Very often Tom caught them just as they touched 
the water ; and caught the alder-flies, and the caperers, 
and the spinners, and gave them to his friends the trout. 

At last he gave up catching even the flies; for he 
made acquaintance with one by accident and found him 
a very merry little fellow. This was the way it hap- 
pened. 


Water-Babies 


6S 


He was basking at the top of the water one hot day 
in July, catching duns and feeding the trout, when he 
saw a new sort, dark gray with a brown head. He 
was a very little fellow, but he made the most of him- 
self. He cocked up his head, and he cocked up his 
wings, and he cocked up his tail, and he cocked up the 
two whisks at his tail-end, and, in short, he looked the 
cockiest little man of all little men. And so he proved 
to be ; for, instead of getting away, he hopped on Tom’s 
finger, and sat there; and cried out in the tiniest, 
shrillest, squeakiest little voice you ever heard, 
‘‘Much obliged to you, indeed; but I don’t want 
it yet.” 

“Want what?” said Tom, quite taken aback by 
his impudence. 

“Your leg, which you are kind enough to hold out 
for me to sit on. I must just go and see after my wife 
for a few minutes. Dear me! what a troublesome 
business a family is!” (though the idle little rogue 
did nothing at all, but left his poor wife to lay all the 
eggs by herself). “When I come back, I shall be glad 
of it, if you’ll be so good as to keep it sticking out just 
so;” and off he flew. 

Tom thought him a very cool sort of personage; 
and still more so, when in five minutes he came back, 


66 


Water-Babies 


and said: “Ah, you were tired waiting? Well, your 
other leg will do as welL’^ 

And he popped himself down on Tom’s knee, and 
began chatting away in his squeaking voice. 

“So you live under the water? I lived there for 
some time, and was very shabby and dirty. But I 
didn’t choose that should last. So I turned re- 
spectable, and came up to the top, and put on this 
gray suit. It’s a very business-like suit, you think, 
don’t you?” 

“Very neat indeed,” said Tom. 

“Yes, one must be neat and respectable and all 
that sort of thing, when one becomes a family man. 
But I’m tired of it, that’s the truth. I’ve done 
quite enough business, I consider, in the last week, 
to last me my life. So I shall put on a ball-dress, and 
go out and be a smart man, and see the gay world, and 
have a dance or two. Why shouldn’t one be jolly if 
one can?” 

“And what will become of your wife?” 

“Oh ! she is a very plain stupid creature, and thinks 
about nothing but eggs. If she chooses to come, why 
she may ; and if not, why I go without her.” 

As he spoke, he turned quite pale, and then quite 
white. 


Water-Babies 67 

‘^Why, you’re ill!’! said Tom. But he did not 
answer. 

‘^You’re dead,” said Tom, looking at him as he stood 
on his knee as white as a ghost. 

‘‘No I ain’t!” answered a little squeaking voice 
over his head. “This is me up here in my ball-dress, 
and that’s my skin. Ha, ha ! you could not do such 
a trick as that ! ” 

And no more Tom could, nor all the conjurers in the 
world. For the little rogue had jumped clean out of 
his own skin, and left it standing on Tom’s knee, eyes, 
wings, legs, tail, exactly as if it had been alive. 

“Ha, ha!” he said, and he jerked and skipped up 
and down, never stopping an instant. “Ain’t I a 
pretty fellow now ? ” 

And so he was ; for his body was white, and his tail 
orange, and his eyes all the colors of a peacock’s tail. 
What was the oddest of all, the whisks at the end of 
his tail had grown five times as long as they were before. 

“Ah !” said he, “now I will see the gay world. My 
living won’t cost me much, for I have no mouth, you 
see, and no inside ; so I can never be hungry nor have 
the stomach-ache neither.” 

He had grown as dry and hard and empty as a quill, 
as such silly shallow-hearted fellows deserve to grow. 


68 


Water-Babies 


But, instead of being ashamed of his emptiness, he 
was quite proud of it, and began flirting and flipping 
up and down, and singing — 

“ My wife shall dance, and I shall sing, 

So merrily pass the day ; 

For I hold it for quite the wisest thing, 

To drive dull care away.” 

He danced up and dovm for three days and three 
nights, till he grew so tired that he tumbled into the 
water and floated down. But what became of him 
Tom never knew, and he himself never minded ; for 
Tom heard him singing to the last, as he floated down — 
“To drive dull care away-ay-ay !” 

And if he did not care, nobody else cared either. 

One day Tom had a new adventure. He was sitting 
on a water-lily leaf, he and his friend the dragon-fly, 
watching the gnats dance. The dragon-fly had eaten 
as many as he wanted, and was sitting quite still and 
sleepy, for it was very hot and bright. The gnats 
danced a foot over his head quite happily, and a large 
black fly settled within an inch of his nose, and began 
washing his own face and combing his hair with his 
paws; but the dragon-fly never stirred, and kept on 
chatting to Tom about the time when he lived under 
the water. 


Water-Babies 


69 


Suddenly Tom heard the strangest noise up the 
stream; cooing, and grunting, and whining, and 
squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two stock- 
doves, nine mice, three guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, 
and left them there to settle themselves and make 
music. 

He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as 
strange as the noise ; a great ball rolling over and over 
down the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown 
fur, and the next of shining glass : and yet it was not 
a ball, for sometimes it broke up and streamed away 
in pieces, and then it joined again, and all the while 
the noise came out of it louder and louder. 

Tom asked the dragon-fly what it could be, but, 
of course, with his short sight, he could not even see 
it, though it was not ten yards away. So Tom took 
the neatest little header into the water, and started 
off to see for himself ; and, when he came near, the ball 
turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many 
times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and 
rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and 
cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in 
the most charming fashion that ever was seen. If 
you donT believe me, you may go to the Zoological 
Gardens, and then say if otters at play in the water 


Water-Babies 


70 

are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you 
ever saw. 

When the biggest of them saw Tom, she darted out 
from the rest, and cried sharply, Quick, children, here 
is something to eat ! ’’ and came at poor Tom, showing 
such a wicked pair of eyes, and such a set of sharp teeth 
in a grinning mouth, that Tom, who had thought her 
very handsome, said to himself, “ Handsome is that 
handsome does,’’ and slipt in between the water-lily 
roots as fast as he could, and then turned round and 
made faces at her. 

^Xome out,” said the wicked old otter, “or it will 
be worse for you.” 

But Tom looked at her from between two thick 
roots, and shook them with all his might, making 
horrible faces all the while, just as he used to grin 
through the raihngs at the old women, when he lived 
before. 

“Come away, children,” said the otter in disgust, 
“it is not worth eating, after all. It is only a nasty 
eft, which nothing eats, not even those vulgar pike in 
the pond.” 

“I am not an eft !” said Tom. 

“You are an eft,” said the otter very positively, 
“ and therefore you are not fit food for gentlefolk like 


Water-Babies 


71 


me and my children. You may stay there till the 
salmon eat you (she knew the salmon would not, but 
she wanted to frighten Tom). Ha! ha! they will eat 
you, and we will eat them;’’ and the otter laughed a 
wicked cruel laugh. 

^‘What are salmon?” asked Tom. 

^^Fish, great fish, nice fish to eat. They are the 
lords of the fish, and we are lords of the salmon and 
she laughed again. ^^We hunt them up and down the 
pools, and drive them up into a corner, the silly things ; 
they are so proud, and bully the little trout and the 
minnows, till they see us coming, and then they are 
meek all at once, and we catch them. They are 
coming soon, children, coming soon; and then hurrah 
for a freshet, and salmon, and plenty of eating all day 
long.” 

“Where do they come from?” asked Tom, who 
kept himself very close, for he was considerably fright- 
ened. 

“Out of the sea, the great wide sea, where they 
might stay and be safe if they liked. But out of the 
sea the silly things come into the river down below, 
and we come to watch for them; and when they go 
down again we follow them. There we fish for the 
bass and the pollock, and have jolly days along the 


72 


Water-Babies 


shore, and toss and roll in the breakers, and sleep snug 
in the warm dry crags. Ah, that is a merry life, chil- 
dren, if it were not for those horrid men.” 

What are men ? ” asked Tom. 

^‘Two-legged things; and, now I come to look at 
you, they are actually something like you, only a 
great deal bigger, worse luck for us; and they catch 
the fish with hooks and lines, and set pots along the 
rocks to catch lobsters. They speared my poor dear 
husband as he went out to find something for me to 
eat. I was laid up among the crags then, and we were 
very low in the world, for the sea was so rough that no 
fish would come in shore. But they speared him, poor 
fellow, and I saw them carrying him away on a pole. 
Ah, he lost his life for your sakes, my children.” 

The otter sailed solemnly away down the stream. 
And lucky it was for her that she did so ; for no sooner 
was she gone than down the bank came seven little 
rough terrier dogs, snuffing and yapping, and grubbing 
and splashing, in full cry after the otters. Tom hid 
among the water-lilies till they were gone. 

He could not help thinking of what the otter had 
said about the great river and the broad sea. And 
he longed to go and see them. The more he thought, 
the more he grew discontented with the narrow little 


Water-Babies 


73 


stream in which he lived and all his companions there, 
and wanted to get out into the wide wide world and 
enjoy all the wonderful sights of which he was sure it 
was full. 

Once he set off to go down the stream. But the 
stream was very low ; and when he came to the shal- 
lows he could not keep under water, for there was no 
water left to keep under. So the sun burnt his back 
and made him sick ; and he went back and lay quiet 
in the pool for a whole week more. 

Then, on the evening of a very hot day, he saw a 
sight. 

He had been very stupid all day, and so had the 
trout ; for they would not move an inch to take a fly, 
though there were thousands on the water, but lay 
dozing at the bottom under the shade of the stones ; 
and Tom lay dozing too, and was glad to cuddle their 
smooth cool sides, for the water was quite warm and 
unpleasant. 

But toward evening it grew suddenly dark, and Tom 
looked up and saw a blanket of black clouds lying right 
across the valley above his head, resting on the crags 
right and left. He felt not quite frightened, but very 
still ; for everything was still. There was not a whis- 
per of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard ; and next 


74 


Water-Babies 


a few great drops of rain fell plop into the water, and 
one hit Tom on the nose and made him pop his head 
down. 

Then the thunder roared, and the lightning flashed 
and leaped across Vendale and back again from cloud 
to cloud and cliff to cliff, till the very rocks in the stream 
seemed to shake; and Tom looked up at it through 
the water and thought it the finest thing he ever saw 
in his life. 

But out of the water he dared not put his head ; for 
the rain came down by bucketsful, and the hail ham- 
mered like shot on the stream and churned it into 
foam ; and soon the stream rose, and rushed down, 
higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, 
and sticks, and straws, and worms, and wood-lice, and 
leeches, and odds and ends, and this, that, and the 
other, enough to fill nine museums. 

Tom could hardly stand against the stream, and hid 
behind a rock. But the trout did not ; for out they 
rushed from among the stones, and began gobbhng the 
beetles and leeches in the most greedy and quarrel- 
some way. 

Now, by the flashes of the lightning, Tom saw a 
new sight — all the bottom of the stream alive with 
great eels, turning and twisting along down stream. 


Water-Babies 


75 


They had been hiding for weeks past in the cracks of 
the rocks, and in burrows in the mud ; and Tom had 
hardly ever seen them, except now and then at night : 
but now they were all out, and went hurrying past 
him so fiercely and wildly that he was quite frightened. 
And he could hear them say to each other, ‘‘We must 
run, we must run. What a jolly thunderstorm ! 
Down to the sea, down to the sea 

Then the otter came by with all her brood, twining 
and sweeping along as fast as the eels themselves. 
She spied Tom, and said: “Now is your time, if you 
want to see the world. Come along, children, never 
mind those nasty eels ; we shall breakfast on salmon 
to-morrow. Down to the sea, down to the sea 

Then came a flash brighter than all the rest, and by 
the light of it — in the thousandth part of a second 
they were gone — but he had seen them, he was cer- 
tain of it — three beautiful little white girls, with their 
arms twined round each other’s necks, floating down 
the torrent, as they sang, “Down to the sea, down to 
the sea!” 

“Oh stay! Wait for me!” cried Tom; but they 
were gone; yet he could hear their voices clear and 
sweet through the roar of thunder and water and wind, 
singing, “Down to the sea !” 


76 


Water-Babies 


“Down to the sea?’' said Tom; “everything is 
going to the sea, and I will go too. Good-by, trout.” 

But the trout were so busy gobbling worms that 
they never turned to answer him. 

Now, down the rushing stream, guided by the bright 
flashes of the storm, past tall birch-fringed rocks, 
which shone out one moment as clear as day, and the 
next were dark as night ; past dark hovers under swirl- 
ing banks, from which great trout rushed out on Tom, 
thinking him to be good to eat, and turned back sulkily, 
for the fairies sent them home with a tremendous 
scolding for daring to meddle with a water-baby; on 
through narrow channels and roaring cataracts, where 
Tom was deafened and bhnded for a moment by the 
rushing waters; along deep reaches, where the white 
water-lilies tossed and flapped beneath the wind and 
hail ; past sleeping villages ; under dark bridge-arches, 
and away and away to the sea. Tom could not stop, 
and did not care to stop ; he w;ould see the great world 
below, and the salmon, and the breakers, and the wide 
wide sea. 

When the daylight came, Tom found himself out 
in the salmon river. 

A full hundred yards broad it was, sliding on from 
broad pool to broad shallow, and broad shallow to 


Water-Babies 


77 


broad pool, under oak and ash coverts, past low cliffs 
of sandstone, past green meadows, and fair parks, and 
a great house of gray stone, and brown moors, and here 
and there against the sky the smoking chimney of a 
colliery. 

But Tom thought nothing about what the river was 
like. All his fancy was to get down to the wide wide 
sea. 

After a while he came to a place where the river 
spread out into broad still shallow reaches, so wide 
that little Tom, as he put his head out of the water, 
could hardly see across. 

There he stopped. He got a little frightened. 
‘‘This must be the sea,’^ he thought. “What a wide 
place it is. If I go on into it I shall surely lose my way, 
or some strange thing will bite me. I will stop here 
and look out for the otter, or the eels, or some one to 
tell me where I shall go.’’ 

So he went back a little way, and crept into a crack 
of the rock, and watched for some one to tell him his 
way; but the otter and the eels were gone miles and 
miles down the stream. 

There he waited, and slept too, for he was quite 
tired with his night’s journey; and, when he woke, 
the stream was clearing to a beautiful amber hue, 


78 


Water-Babies 


though it was still very high. And he saw a sight 
which made him jump up, for he knew in a moment 
it was one of the things which he had come to look for. 

Such a fish! ten times as big as the biggest trout, 
and a hundred times as big as Tom, sculling up the 
stream past him, as easily as Tom had sculled down. 

Such a fish 1 shining silver from head to tail, and 
here and there a crimson dot ; with a hooked nose and 
curling lip, and bright eyes, looking round him as 
proudly as a king, and surveying the water right and 
left as if all belonged to him. Surely he must be the 
salmon, the king of all the fish. 

Tom was frightened ; but he need not have been, 
for salmon are all true gentlemen, and never quarrel 
with nor harm any one, but go about their own 
business and leave rude fellows to themselves. 

The salmon looked at him full in the face, and then 
went on with a swish or two of his tail which made the 
stream boil again. In a few minutes came another, 
and then four or five, and so on ; and all passed Tom, 
rushing and plunging up the cataract with strong 
strokes of their silver tails, now and then leaping clean 
out of water and up over a rock, shining gloriously for 
a moment in the bright sun ; while Tom was so delighted 
that he could have watched them all day long. 


Water-Babies 


79 


At last one came bigger than all the rest; but he 
came slowly, and stopped, and looked back, and seemed 
very anxious and busy. Tom saw that he was help- 
ing another salmon, an especially handsome one, who 
had not a single spot upon it, but was clothed in pure 
silver from nose to tail. 

My dear,’’ said the great fish to his companion, ‘‘you 
really look dreadfully tired, and you must not overexert 
yourself. Do rest behind this rock;” and he shoved 
her gently with his nose to the rock where Tom sat. 

This was the salmon’s wife. For salmon always 
choose their lady, and love her, and take care of her, 
and work for her, and fight for her, as every true gen- 
tleman ought, and are not like vulgar chub and roach 
and pike, who have no high feelings, and take no care 
of their wives. 

Then he saw Tom, and looked at him fiercely one 
moment as if he was going to bite him. 

“What do you want here?” he said. 

“Oh, don’t hurt me!” cried Tom. “I only want 
to look at you ; you are so handsome.” 

“Ah?” said the salmon, very stately but very 
civilly. “I really beg your pardon; I see what you 
are, my little dear. I have met one or two creatures 
like you before, and found them very agreeable and 


8o 


Water-Babies 


well-behaved. Indeed, one of them showed me a 
great kindness lately. I hope we shall not be in your 
way here. As soon as this lady is rested we shall 
proceed on our journey.’^ 

What a well-bred old salmon he was ! 

“So you have seen things like me before?’’ asked 
Tom. 

“Several times, my dear. Indeed, it was only last 
night that one at the river’s mouth came and warned 
me and my wife of some new stake-nets which had 
gotten into the stream, I cannot tell how, and showed 
us the way round them in the most charmingly obliging 
way.” 

“So there are babies in the sea?” cried Tom, and 
clapped his little hands. “Then I shall have some 
one to play with there? How delightful !” 

“Were there no babies up this stream?” asked the 
lady salmon. 

“No; and I grew so lonely. I thought I saw three 
last night, but they were gone in an instant down to 
the sea. So I went too, for I had nothing to play 
with but caddises and dragon-flies and trout.” 

“Ugh !” cried the lady, “what low company !” 

“My dear, if he has been in low company, he has cer- 
tainly not learned their low manners,” said the salmon. 


Water-Babies 


8i 


“No, indeed, poor little dear! but how sad for him 
to live among such people as caddises, who have actu- 
ally six legs, the nasty things 1 and dragon-flies, too ! 
why, they are not even good to eat ; for I tried them 
once, and they are all hard and empty; and, as for 
trout, every one knows what they are/^ Whereon 
she curled up her lip, and looked dreadfully scornful. 

“Why do you dislike the trout so?’’ asked Tom. 

“My dear, we do not even mention them, if we can 
help it ; for I am sorry to say they are relations of ours 
who do us no credit. A great many years ago they 
were just like us; but they were so lazy, and cowardly, 
and greedy, that instead of going down to the sea every 
year to see the world and grow strong and fat, they 
chose to stay and poke about in the little streams and 
eat worms and grubs.” 



IV 

T he salmon went up, after Tom had warned 
them of the wicked old otter, and Tom went 
down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along the 
shore. He was many days about it, for it was many 
miles down to the sea. 


82 



Water-Babies 


83 


As he went, he had a very strange adventure. It 
was a clear still September night, and the moon shone 
so brightly down through the water that he could 
not sleep, though he shut his eyes as tight as possible. 
So at last he came up to the top, and sat on a little 
point of rock, and looked up at the broad yellow 
moon, and wondered what she was, and thought that 
she looked at him. He watched the moonlight on the 
rippling river, and the black heads of the firs, and the 
silver-frosted lawns, and hstened to the owFs hoot, 
and the snipe’s bleat, and the fox’s bark, and the 
otter’s laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the 
birches, and the wafts of heather honey off the grouse- 
moor far above ; and felt very happy. You, of course, 
would have been very cold sitting there on a Septem- 
ber night, without the least bit of clothes on your wet 
back; but Tom was a water-baby, and therefore felt 
cold no more than a fish. 

Suddenly he saw a beautiful sight. A bright red 
light moved along the river side, and threw down into 
the water a long tap-root of flame. Tom must needs 
go and see what it was, so he swam to the shore, and 
met the light as it stopped over a shallow run at the 
edge of a low rock. 

There, underneath the light, lay five or six salmon. 


84 


Water-Babies 


looking up at the flame with their great goggle eyes, 
and wagging their tails, as if they were very much 
pleased at it. 

Tom came to the top to look at this wonderful 
light nearer, and made a splash. And he heard a 
voice say, ‘‘There was a fish rose.’’ 

He did not know what the words meant, but he 
seemed to know the sound of them, and to know the 
voice which spoke them; and he saw on the bank 
three great two-legged creatures, one of whom held 
the light, flaring and sputtering, and another a long 
pole. He knew that they were men, and was 
frightened, and crept into a hole in the rock from 
which he could see what went on. 

The man with the torch bent down over the water 
and looked earnestly in, and then he said: “Tak’ 
that muckle fellow, lad; he’s ower fifteen p’unds; 
and hand your hand steady.” 

Tom felt that there was some danger coming, and 
longed to warn the foolish salmon, who kept staring 
up at the light as if he was bewitched. But, before 
he could make up his mind, down came the pole 
through the water. There was a fearful splash and 
struggle, and Tom saw that the poor salmon was 
speared right through, and was lifted out of the water. 



Three great tvjo-legged creatures on the bank 




Water-Babies 


85 


Then, from behind, there sprang on these three men 
three other men; and there were shouts, and blows, 
and words which Tom recollected to have heard 
before; and he shuddered and turned sick at them 
now, for he felt somehow that they were strange, 
and ugly, and wrong, and horrible. It all began to 
come back to him. They were men; and they were 
fighting ; savage, desperate, up-and-down fighting, 
such as Tom had seen too many times before. 

He stopped his little ears, and longed to swim 
away, and was very glad that he was a water-baby, 
and had nothing to do any more with horrid dirty 
men with foul words on their lips; but he dared not 
stir out of his hole, while the rock shook over his 
head with the trampling and struggling of the keepers 
and the poachers. 

All of a sudden there was a tremendous splash, 
and a frightful flash, and a hissing, and all was still. 

For into the water, close to Tom, fell one of the 
men, he who held the light in his hand. Into the 
swift river he sank, and rolled over and over in the 
current. Tom heard the men above run along, seem- 
ingly looking for him, but he drifted down into the 
deep hole below, and there lay quite still, and they 
could not find him. 


86 


Water-Babies 


Tom waited a long time, till all was quiet, and 
then he peeped out and saw the man. At last he 
screwed up his courage, and swam down to him. 

Perhaps, he thought, ‘Hhe water has made him 
fall asleep, as it did me.’’ 

Then he went nearer. He swam round and round 
him, closer and closer; and, as the man did not stir, 
at last he came quite close and looked him in the face. 

The moon shone so bright that Tom could see 
every feature; and, as he saw, he recollected, bit by 
bit. It was his old master. Grimes. 

Tom turned tail, and swam away as fast as he 
could. 

“O dear me!” he thought, “now he will turn into 
a water-baby. What a troublesome one he will be I 
And perhaps he will find me, and beat me again.” 

So he went up the river a little way, and lay there 
the rest of the night under an alder root; but, when 
morning came, he longed to go down again to the 
big pool, and see whether Mr. Grimes had turned 
into a water-baby yet. 

He went very carefully, peeping round all the 
rocks, and hiding under all the roots. Mr. Grimes 
lay there still ; he had not turned into a water-baby. 
In the afternoon Tom went back again. He could 


Water-Babies 87 

not rest till he had found out what had become of 
Mr. Grimes. But this time Mr. Grimes was gone, 
and Tom made up his mind that he was turned into 
a water-baby. 

He might have made himself easy. Mr. Grimes 
did not turn into a water-baby, or anything like 
one. But Tom did not make himself easy; and for 
a long time he was fearful lest he should meet Grimes 
suddenly in some deep pool. He could not know 
that the fairies had carried him away, and put him, 
where they put everything which falls into the water, 
exactly where it ought to be. 

Then Tom went on down, for he was afraid of 
staying near Grimes; and, as he went, all the vale 
looked sad. The red and yellow leaves* showered 
down into the river; the flies and beetles were all 
dead and gone; the chill autumn fog lay low on the 
hills, and sometimes spread itself so thickly on the 
river that he could not see his way. But he felt his 
way instead, following the flow of the stream, day 
after day, past great bridges, past boats and barges, 
past the great town, with its wharves and mills, and 
tall smoking chimneys, and ships which rode at anchor 
in the stream ; and now and then he ran against their 
hawsers, and wondered what they were, and peeped 


88 


Water-Babies 


out and saw the sailors lounging on board smoking 
their pipes; and ducked under again, for he was 
terribly afraid of being caught by man and turned 
into a chimney-sweep once more. It was a dreary 
journey for him; and more than once he longed to 
be back in Vendale playing with the trout in the 
bright summer sun. 

But Tom was always a brave, determined little 
fellow, who never knew when he was beaten; and 
on and on he held, till he saw a long way off a red 
buoy through the fog. Then he found, to his 
surprise, the stream turned round and running up 
inland. 

It was the tide, of course : but Tom knew nothing 
of the tide. He only knew that in a minute more 
the water, which had been fresh, turned salt all round 
him. Then there came a change over him. He felt 
strong, and light, and fresh; and gave, he did not 
know why, three skips out of the water, a yard high, 
and head over heels, just as the salmon do when they 
first touch the noble rich salt water. 

He did not care now for the tide being against him. 
The red buoy was in sight, dancing in the open sea; 
and to the buoy he went. He passed great shoals 
of bass and mullet, leaping arid rushing in after the 


Water-Babies 


89 


shrimps, but he never heeded them, nor they him; 
and once he passed a great black shining seal, who 
was coming in after the mullet. The seal put his 
head and shoulders out of water, and stared at him, 
looking exactly like a fat old greasy negro with a gray 
pate. Tom, instead of being frightened, said, “How 
d’ye do, sir ; what a beautiful place the sea is !” 

And the old seal, instead of trying to bite him, 
looked at him with his soft sleepy winking eyes, and 
said, “Good tide to you, my little man; are you 
looking for your brothers and sisters? I passed them 
all at play outside.” 

“Oh, then,” said Tom, “I shall have playfellows 
at last!” and he swam to the buoy, and got on it 
and sat there, and looked round for water-babies; 
but there were none to be seen. 

The sea-breeze came in freshly with the tide and 
blew the fog away, and the little waves danced for 
joy around the buoy, and the old buoy danced with 
them. The shadows of the clouds ran races over the 
bright blue bay, and yet never caught each other up ; 
and the breakers plunged merrily upon the wide white 
sands, and jumped up over the rocks to see what 
the green fields inside were like, and tumbled down 
and broke themselves all to pieces, and never minded 


90 


Water-Babies 


it a bit, but mended themselves and jumped up again. 
The terns hovered over Tom like huge white dragon- 
flies with black heads, and the gulls laughed like girls 
at play, and the sea-pies, with their red bills and legs, 
flew to and fro from shore to shore, and whistled sweet 
and wild. Tom looked and looked, and listened ; 
and he would have been very happy, if he could only 
have seen the water-babies. Then, when the tide 
turned, he left the buoy, and swam round and round 
in search of them ; but in vain. Sometimes he thought 
he heard them laughing, but it was only the laughter 
of the ripples. And sometimes he thought he saw 
them at the bottom, but it was only white and pink 
shells. Once he was sure he had found one, for he 
saw two bright eyes peeping out of the sand. So 
he dived down and began scraping the sand away, 
and cried, “Don’t hide; I do want some one to play 
with so much!” 

And out jumped a great turbot, with his ugly eyes 
and mouth all awry, and flopped away along the 
bottom, knocking poor Tom over. And Tom sat 
down at the bottom of the sea and cried from sheer 
disappointment. 

To have come all this way and faced so many 
dangers, and yet to find no water-babies 1 Well, it 


Water-Babies 


91 


did seem hard ; but people, even little babies, cannot 
have all they want without waiting for it, and working 
for it too. 

Tom sat on the buoy long days, long weeks, 
looking out to sea, and wondering when the water- 
babies would come back; and yet they never came. 

Then he began to ask all the strange things which 
came in out of the sea if they had seen any, and some 
said and some said nothing at all. 

He asked the bass and the pollock ; but they were 
so greedy after the shrimps that they did not care to 
answer him a word. 

Then there came in a whole fleet of purple sea 
snails, floating along each on a sponge full of foam, 
and Tom said, Where do you come from, you pretty 
creatures? and have you seen the water-babies?” 

The sea-snails answered, Whence we come we 
know not; and whither we are going, who can tell? 
We float out our life in the mid-ocean, with the warm 
sunshine above our heads, and the warm gulf-stream 
below; and that is enough for us. Yes, perhaps we 
have seen the water-babies. We have seen many 
strange things as we sailed along.” And they floated 
away, the happy stupid things, and all went ashore 
upon the sands. 


92 


Water-Babies 


Then there came in a great lazy sunfish, as big as 
a fat pig cut in half ; and he seemed to have been 
cut in half too, and squeezed in a clothespress till he 
was flat; but to all his big body and big fins he had 
a mouth no bigger than Tom’s ; and, when Tom 
questioned him, he answered in a httle squeaky, feeble 
voice : I’m sure I don’t know ; I’ve lost my way. I 
meant to go to the Chesapeake, and I’m afraid I’ve 
got wrong, somehow. Dear me 1 it was all by fol- 
lowing that pleasant warm water. I’m sure I’ve lost 
my way.” 

When Tom asked him again, he could only answer, 
^‘I’ve lost my way. Don’t talk to me; I want to 
think.” 

But the more he tried to think the less he could 
think, and Tom saw him blundering about all day, 
till the coast-guardsmen saw his big fin above the 
water, and rowed out, and struck a boat-hook into 
him, and took him away. They took him up to the 
town and showed him for a penny a head, and made 
a good day’s work of it. But of course Tom did not 
know that. 

Then there came by a shoal of porpoises, rolling 
as they went — papas, and mammas, and little chil- 
dren — and all quite smooth and shiny, and they 


Water-Babies 


93 


sighed so softly as they came by that Tom took 
courage to speak to them : but all they answered was, 
‘^Hush, hush, hush’’ ; for that was all they had learned 
to say. 

Then there came a shoal of basking sharks, some 
of them as long as a boat, and Tom was frightened 
at them. But they were very lazy, good-natured 
fellows, not greedy tyrants, like white sharks and blue 
sharks and ground sharks who eat men. They came 
and rubbed their great sides against the buoy, and 
lay basking in the sun with their backfins out of 
water, and winked at Tom ; but he never could get 
them to speak. They had eaten so many herrings 
that they were quite stupid, and Tom was glad when 
a collier brig came by and frightened them all away ; 
for they did smell most horribly, and he had to hold 
his nose tight as long as they were there. 

Then there came by a beautiful creature, like a 
ribbon of pure silver with a sharp head and very long 
teeth; but it seemed sick and sad. Sometimes it 
rolled helpless on its side; and then it dashed away 
glittering like white fire; and then it lay sick again 
and motionless. 

‘‘Where do you come from?” asked Tom. “And 
why are you so sick and sad?” 


94 


Water-Babies 


^[1 come from the warm Carolinas and the sand- 
banks fringed with pines. But I wandered north 
and north on the treacherous warm gulf-stream, till I 
met the cold icebergs afloat in the mid-ocean. I 
got chilled with their frozen breath. But the water- 
babies helped me from among them, and set me free. 
Now I am getting better every day.’’ 

“Oh!” cried Tom. -“And you have seen water- 
babies? Have you seen any near here?” 

“Yes; they helped me again last night, or I should 
have been eaten by a great black porpoise.” 

How vexatious ! The water-babies close to him, 
and yet he could not find one. 

Then he left the buoy, and used to go along the 
sands and round the rocks, and come out in the night 
and sit on a point of rock among the shining sea- 
weeds in the low October tides, and cry and call for 
the water-babies; but he never heard a voice call in 
return. At last, with his fretting and crying, he grew 
quite lean and thin. 

But one day among the rocks he found a play- 
fellow. It was not a water-baby, but it was a lob- 
ster ; and a very distinguished lobster he was, for he 
had live barnacles on his claws, which is a great mark 
of distinction in lobsterdom. 


Water-Babies 


95 


Tom had never seen a lobster before, and he was 
mightily taken with this one; for he thought him 
the most curious, ridiculous creature he had ever seen, 
and there he was not far wrong, for all the ingenious 
men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful 
men, in the world, could never invent, if all their wits 
were boiled into one, anything so curious, and so 
ridiculous, as a lobster. 

He had one claw knobbed and the other jagged; 
and Tom delighted in watching him hold on to the 
sea-weed with his knobbed claw, while he cut up 
salads with his jagged one, and then put them into his 
mouth, after smelling at them, like a monkey. And 
always the little barnacles threw out their casting nets 
and swept the water, and came in for their share of 
whatever there was for dinner. 

But Tom was most astonished to see how he fired 
himself off — snap ! Certainly he took the most 
wonderful shots, and backwards, too. For, if he 
wanted to go into a narrow crack ten yards off, what 
do you think he did? If he had gone in head fore- 
most, of course he could not have turned round. So 
he used to turn his tail to it, and lay his long horns 
straight down his back to guide him, and twist his 
eyes back till they almost came out of their sockets, 


96 


Water-Babies 


and then made ready, snap ! — and away he went, 
pop into the hole ; and peeped out and twiddled his 
whiskers, as much as to say, ^‘You couldn’t do that.” 

Tom asked him about water-babies. Yes, he said, 
he had seen them often. But he did not think much of 
them. They were meddlesome little creatures that 
went about helping fish and shells which got into 
scrapes. Well, for his part, he should be ashamed to 
be helped by little soft creatures that had not even a 
shell on their backs. He had lived quite long enough 
in the world to take care of himself. 

He was a conceited fellow, the old lobster, and not 
very civil to Tom. But he was so funny, and Tom so 
lonely, that he could not quarrel with him ; and they 
used to sit in holes in the rocks, and chat for hours. 

About this time there happened to Tom a very 
important adventure — so important, indeed, that he 
was very near never finding the water-babies at all. 

I hope that you have not forgotten the little white 
lady all this while. For it befell in the pleasant short 
December days, when the wind always blows from 
the southwest, till Old Father Christmas comes and 
spreads the great white tablecloth ready for little 
boys and girls to give the birds their Christmas dinner 
of crumbs — it befell in the pleasant December days 


Water-Babies 


97 


that Sir John was so busy hunting that nobody at 
home could get a word out of him. Four days a week 
he hunted, and very good sport he had, and the 
other two he went to the bench and the board of 
guardians, and very good justice he did; and, when 
he got home in time, he dined at five, and fell asleep 
every evening, and snored so terribly that all the 
windows in Harthover shook and the soot fell down 
the chimneys. Whereon My Lady, being no more 
able to get conversation out of him than a song out 
of a dead nightingale, determined to go off and leave 
him, and the doctor, and Captain Swinger, the agent, 
to snore in concert every evening to their hearts^ con- 
tent. So she started for the seaside with the children. 

Now it befell that on the very shore, and over the 
very rocks, where Tom was sitting with his friend the 
lobster, there walked one day the little white lady, 
Ellie herself, and with her a very wise man indeed — 
Professor Ptthmllnsprts. 

His mother was a Dutchwoman, and his father a 
Pole, but for all that he was a thorough Englishman. 
And his name, as I said, was Professor Ptthmllnsprts, 
which is a very ancient and noble Polish name. 

He was a great naturalist, and professor in the new 
university which the king of the Cannibal Islands had 


98 


Water-Babies 


founded; and he had come here to collect all the 
disagreeable things which he could find on the coast 
of England, and turn them loose round the Cannibal 
Islands, because they had not disagreeable things 
enough there to eat what they left. 

But he was a very worthy, kind, good-natured little 
old gentleman, and very fond of children (for he was 
not the least a cannibal himself) ; and very good to 
all the world as long as it was good to him. 

He had met Sir John somewhere or other, and had 
made acquaintance with him, and become very fond 
of his children. Sir John knew nothing about sea- 
cockyolybirds, and cared less, provided the fishmonger 
sent him good fish for dinner ; and My Lady knew as 
little, but she thought it proper that the children 
should know something. For in the stupid old times, 
children were taught to know one thing, and to know 
it well, but in these enlightened new times they are 
taught to know a little about everything, and to know 
it all ill. 

Ellie and he were walking on the rocks, and he was 
showing her the beautiful and curious things which 
are to be seen there. But little Ellie was not satisfied 
with them at all. She liked much better to play with 
live children, or even with dolls, which she could pre- 


Water-Babies 


99 


tend were alive; and at last she said honestly, 
don’t care about these things, because they can’t play 
with me, nor talk to me. If there were little children 
in the water, and I could see them, I should like that.” 

‘‘Children in the water, you strange little duck?” 
said the professor. 

“Yes,” said Ellie. “I know there used to be chil- 
dren in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. 
I saw them all in a picture at home of a beautiful 
lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies 
flying round her, and one sitting in her lap ; and the 
mermaids swimming and playing, and the mermen 
trumpeting on conch-shells. It hangs on the great 
staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a 
baby, and dreamed about it a hundred times ; and it 
is so beautiful that it must be true.” 

But the professor had not the least notion of al- 
lowing that things were true merely because people 
thought them beautiful. So he gave her, in a form 
suited for the youthful mind, his arguments against 
water-babies. 

Ellie was, I suppose, a stupid little girl ; for, instead 
of being convinced by Professor Ptthmllnsprts’ argu- 
ments, she only asked, “But why are there not water- 
babies?” 


lOO 


Water-Babies 


I trust and hope that it was because the professor 
trod at that moment on the edge of a very sharp 
mussel, and hurt one of his corns sadly, that he 
answered quite sharply, forgetting that he was a 
scientific man, ^‘Because there ain’t.’’ 

Which was not even good English. The professor 
ought to have said. Because there are not : or are none. 

He groped with his net under the weeds so violently, 
that, as it befell, he caught little Tom. 

He felt the net very heavy, and lifted it out 
quickly with Tom all entangled in the meshes. 

“Dear me!” he cried. ' “What a large pink Holo- 
thurian ; with hands, too ! ” 

He took him out. 

“It actually has eyes!” he cried. “WHiy, it must 
be a Cephalopod ! This is most extraordinary!” 

“No, I ain’t !” cried Tom, as loud as he could ; for 
he did not like to be called bad names. 

“ It is a water-baby ! ” cried Ellie; and of course it 
was. 

“Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!” said the professor, 
and he turned away sharply. 

There was no denying it. It was a water-baby, 
and he had said a moment ago that there were none. 
What was he to do? 



The professor catches Tom in his net 







Water-Babies 


lOI 


He would have liked, of course, to have taken Tom 
home in a bucket, kept him alive, and petted him 
and written a book about him. 

If the professor had said to ElHe, ^‘Yes, my darling, 
it is a water-baby, and a very wonderful thing it is, 
and it shows how little I know of the wonders of 
Nature, in spite of forty years’ honest labor. I was 
just telling you that there could be no such creatures ; 
and, behold! here is one come to confound my con- 
ceit, and show me that Nature can do, and has done, 
beyond all that man’s poor fancy can imagine.” I 
think, if the professor had said that, little Ellie 
would have believed him more firmly, and respected 
him more deeply, and loved him better, than ever she 
had done before. But he was of a different opinion. 
He hesitated a moment. He longed to keep Tom, 
and yet he half wished he never had caught him. 
At last, he poked Tom with his finger, for want of 
anything better to do. 

Tom had been in the most horrible and unspeak- 
able fright all the while, and had kept as quiet as he 
could, for it was fixed in his little head that if a man 
with clothes on caught him, he might put clothes on 
him too, and make a dirty black chimney-sweep of 
him again. But when the professor poked him, it was 


102 


Water-Babies 


more than he could bear, and, between fright and 
rage, he turned to bay as valiantly as a mouse in a 
corner, and bit the professor’s finger till it bled. 

‘^Oh! ah! yah!” the professor cried ; and, glad of 
an excuse to be rid of Tom, dropped him on to the 
sea-weed, and thence Tom dived into the water and 
was gone in a moment. 

‘^But it was a water-baby, and I heard it speak!” 
cried Ellie. “Ah, it is gone!” And she jumped 
down off the rock to try and catch Tom before he 
slipped into the sea. 

Too late ! and what was worse, as she sprang down, 
she slipped, and fell some six feet, and struck her head 
on a sharp rock, and lay quite still. 

The professor picked her up, and tried to waken 
her, and called to her, and cried over her, for he loved 
her very much ; but she would not waken at all. So 
he took her up in his arms and carried her to her 
governess, and they all went home, and little Ellie 
was put to bed and lay there quite still; only now 
and then she woke up and called out about the water- 
baby, but no one knew what she meant, and the pro- 
fessor did not tell, for he was ashamed to tell. 

After a week, one moonlight night, the fairies came 
flying in at the window, and brought her such a pretty 


Water-Babies 


103 


pair of wings that she could not help putting them 
on; and she flew with them out of the window, and 
over the land, and over the sea, and up through the 
clouds, and nobody heard or saw anything of her for 
a very long while. 



V 


T om slipt away off the rocks into the water, as I 
said before. But he could not help thinking of 
little Ellie. He did not remember who she was ; but 
he knew that she was a little girl, though she was a 
himdred times as big as he. Tom thought about her 


104 



Water-Babies 


los 

all that day, and longed to have her to play with, but 
he very soon had to think of something else. 

He was going along the rocks in three-fathom water, 
watching the pollock catch prawns, and the wrasses 
nibble barnacles off the rocks, shells and all, when he 
saw a round cage of green withes, and inside it, look- 
ing very much ashamed of himself, sat his friend the 
lobster, twiddling his horns, instead of thumbs. 

“What, have you been naughty, and have they put 
you in the lock-up?’’ asked Tom. 

The lobster felt a little indignant at such a notion, 
but he was too much depressed in spirits to argue, so 
he only said, “I can’t get out.” 

“Why did you get in?” 

“After that nasty piece of dead fish.” 

He had thought it looked and smelt very nice when 
he was outside, and so it did, for a lobster ; but now 
he turned round and abused it because he was angry 
with himself. 

“Where did you get in?” 

“Through that round hole at the top.” 

“Then why don’t you get out through it?” 

“Because I can’t,” and the lobster twiddled his 
horns more fiercely than ever. “I have jumped up- 
wards, downwards, backwards, and sideways at least 


io6 Water-Babies 

four thousand times, and I can’t get out ; I always get 
up underneath there and can’t find the hole.” 

Tom looked at the trap, and, having more wit than 
the lobster, he saw plainly enough what was the matter. 

^‘Stop a bit,” said Tom. ‘‘Turn your tail up to 
me, and I’ll pull you through hindforemost, and then 
you won’t stick in the spikes.” 

But the lobster was so stupid and clumsy that he 
couldn’t hit the hole. He was very sharp as long as 
he was in his own country, but as soon as he got out 
of it he lost his head, or, so to speak, lost his tail. 

Tom reached and clawed down the hole after him, 
till he caught hold of him; and then, as was to be 
expected, the clumsy lobster pulled him in head fore- 
most. 

“Hello ! here is a pretty business,” said Tom. “ Now 
take your great claws, and break the points off those 
spikes, and then we shall both get out easily.” 

“Dear me, I never thought of that,” said the lobster ; 
“and after all the experience of life that I have had !” 

But they had not got half the spikes away when 
they saw a great dark cloud over them, and lo and 
behold, it was the otter. 

How she did grin and grin when she saw Tom. 
“Yar!” said she, “you little meddlesome wretch, I 


Water-Babies 


107 


have you now ! I will punish you for telling the sal- 
mon where I was!’’ And she crawled all over the 
pot to get in. 

Tom was horribly frightened, and still more fright- 
ened when she found the hole in the top and squeezed 
herself right down through it. But no sooner was her 
head inside than valiant Mr. Lobster caught her by 
the nose, and held on. 

There they were all three in the pot, rolling over and 
over, and very tight packing it was. The lobster tore 
at the otter, and the otter tore at the lobster, and both 
squeezed and thumped poor Tom till he had no breath 
left in his body; and I don’t know what would have 
happened to him if he had not at last got on the otter’s 
back, and safe out of the hole. 

He was right glad when he got out; but he would 
not desert his friend who had saved him, and the 
first time he saw his tail uppermost he caught hold of 
it, and pulled with all his might. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

“Come along,” said Tom; “don’t you see she is 
dead ? ” 

So she was, quite drowned and dead. And that 
was the end of the wicked otter. But the lobster 
would not let go. 


io8 


Water-Babies 


“Come along, you stupid old stick-in-the-mud,’’ 
cried Tom, “or the fisherman will catch you!” And 
that was true, for Tom felt some one above beginning 
to haul up the pot. 

But the lobster would not let go. 

Tom saw the fisherman haul him up to the boatside, 
and thought it was all up with him. But, when Mr. 
Lobster saw the fisherman, he gave such a furious and 
tremendous snap that he snapped out of his hand, and 
out of the pot, and safe into the sea. But he left his 
knobbed claw behind him ; for it never came into his 
stupid head to let go, so he just shook his claw off. 

Tom asked the lobster why he never thought of 
letting go. He said very determinedly that it was 
a point of honor among lobsters. And so it is, as the 
Mayor of Plymouth found out once to his cost eight 
or nine hundred years ago. 

For one day he was so tired with sitting on a hard 
chair, in a grand furred gown with a gold chain round 
his neck, hearing one policeman after another come in 
and sing, “What shall we do with the drunken sailor, 
so early in the morning?” and answering them each 
exactly ahke — “ Put him in the round house till he 
gets sober,” that, when it was over, he jumped up 
and played leap-frog with the town-clerk till he burst 


Water-Babies 


109 


his buttons, and then had his luncheon and burst 
some more buttons, and then said: ^‘It is a low 
spring tide ; I shall go out and have an afternoon’s fun, 
and catch lobsters with an iron hook.” 

So to the Mewstone ^ he went, and for lobsters he 
looked. And, when he came to a certain crack in the 
rocks, he was so excited that, instead of putting in his 
hook, he put in his hand. Mr. Lobster was at home, 
and caught him by the finger, and held on. 

‘‘Yah!” said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he 
dared; but the more he pulled the more the lobster 
pinched, till he was forced to be quiet. 

Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand ; 
but the hole was too narrow. 

Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the 
pain. 

Then he shouted and bawled for help; but there 
was no one nearer him than the men-of-war inside the 
breakwater. 

Then he began to turn a little pale; for the tide 
flowed, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he turned quite white ; for the tide was up to 
his knees, and still the lobster held on. 

^ A rock that stands up out of the sea just outside of Plymouth 
harbor. 


no 


Water-Babies 


Then he thought of cutting off his finger; but he 
wanted two things to do it with — courage and a 
knife ; and he had neither. 

Then he turned quite yellow; for the tide was up 
to his waist, and still the lobster held on. 

Then he thought over all the naughty things he ever 
had done : all the sand which he had put in the sugar, 
and the sloe-leaves in the tea, and the water in the 
treacle. 

Then he turned quite blue; for the tide was up to 
his breast, and still the lobster held on. 

Then, I have no doubt, he repented fully of all the 
naughty things which he had done, and promised to 
mend his life, as too many do when they think they 
have no life left to mend. 

Then he grew all colors at once, and turned up his 
eyes; for the water was up to his chin, and still the 
lobster held on: 

Then came a man-of-war’s boat round the Mewstone, 
and saw his head sticking up out of the water. One 
said it was a keg of brandy, and another that it was a 
cocoanut, and another that it was a buoy loose, and 
another that it was a black duck, and wanted to fire 
at it, which would not have been pleasant for the 
mayor; but just then such a yell came out of a great 


Water-Babies 


III 


hole in the middle of it that the midshipman in charge 
guessed what it was, and bade his comrades pull up 
to it as fast as they could. So somehow or other 
the Jack-tars got the lobster out, and set the mayor 
free, and put him ashore. He never went lobster- 
catching again; and we will hope he put no more 
sand in the sugar. That is the story of the mayor of 
Plymouth. 

And now happened to Tom a most wonderful thing ; 
for he had not left the lobster five minutes before he 
came upon a water-baby. 

A real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand 
very busy about a little point of rock. When it saw 
Tom it looked up for a moment, and then cried, “Why, 
you are not one of us. You are a new baby! Oh, 
how delightful I 

And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they 
hugged and kissed each other for ever so long. 

At last Tom said, “Oh, where have you been all 
this while ? I have been looking for you so long, and 
I have been so lonely.’’ 

“We have been here for days and days. There are 
hundreds of us about the rocks. How was it you did 
not see us, nor hear us, when we sing and romp every 
evening before we go home?” 


II2 


Water-Babies 


Tom looked at the baby again, and then he said : 
^^Well, this is wonderful! I have seen things just like 
you again and again, but I thought you were shells, or 
sea-creatures. I never took you for water-babies like 
myself.’’ 

‘‘Now,” said the baby, “come and help me, or I 
shall not have finished before my brothers and sisters 
come, and it is time to go home.” 

“What shall I help you at?” 

“At this poor dear little rock; a great clumsy 
boulder came rolling by in the last storm, and knocked 
its head off, and rubbed off all its flowers. And now 
I must plant it again with sea- weeds, and coralline, 
and anemones, and I will make it the prettiest little 
garden on all the shore.” 

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, 
and smoothed the sand down round it, and capital fun 
they had till the tide began to turn. Then Tom heard 
all the other babies coming, laughing and singing and 
shouting and romping; and the noise they made was 
just like the noise of the ripple. So he knew that he 
had been hearing and seeing the water-babies all along ; 
only he did not know them, because his eyes and ears 
were not opened. 

In they came, dozens and dozens of them, some 


Water-Babies 


113 

bigger than Tom and some smaller, all in the neatest 
little white bathing dresses; and when they found 
that he was a new baby they hugged him and kissed 
him, and then put him in the middle and danced round 
him on the sand, and there was no one ever so happy 
before as little Tom. 

''Now, then,’^ they cried all at once, "we must go 
away home, we must go away home, or the tide will 
leave us dry. We have mended all the broken sea- 
weed, and put all the rock pools in order, and planted 
all the shells again in the sand, and nobody will see 
where the ugly storm swept in last week.’’ 

This is the reason why the rock pools are always 
so neat and clean; because the water-babies come 
in shore after every storm, to sweep them out, 
and comb them down, and put them all to rights 
again. 

Only where men are wasteful and dirty, and let 
sewers run into the sea, instead of putting the stuff 
on the fields like thrifty reasonable souls; or throw 
herrings’ heads, and dead fish, or any other refuse, into 
the water ; or in any way make a mess upon the clean 
shore, there the water-babies will not come, sometimes 
not for hundreds of years (for they cannot abide any- 
thing smelly or foul) : but leave the sea-anemones and 


Water-Babies 


114 

the crabs to clear away everything, till the good tidy 
sea has covered up all the dirt in soft mud and clean 
sand, where the water-babies can plant live cockles and 
whelks and razor-shells and sea-cucumbers and golden- 
combs, and make a pretty live garden again, after 
man’s dirt is cleared away. 

Where is the home of the water-babies? In St. 
Brandan’s fairy isle. 

Did you never hear of the blessed St. Brandan, how 
he preached to the wild Irish on the wild wild Kerry 
coast ; he and five other hermits, till they were weary 
and longed to rest? For the wild Irish would not 
listen to them, nor come to mass, but liked better to 
brew potheen, and dance, and knock each other over 
the head with shillalahs, and shoot each other from 
behind turf-dykes, and steal each other’s cattle, and 
bum each other’s homes; till St. Brandan and his 
friends were weary of them, for they would not learn 
to be peaceable Christians at all. 

So St. Brandan went out to the point of Old Dun- 
more, and looked over the tide-way and away into the 
ocean, and sighed, ^‘Ah that I had wings as a dove !” 
And far away, before the setting sun, he saw a blue 
fairy sea and golden fairy islands, and he said, “Those 
are the islands of the blest.” 


Water-Babies 


IIS 

Then he and his friends got into a fishing boat, and 
sailed away to the westward, and were never heard 
of more. But the people who would not hear him 
were changed into gorillas, and gorillas they are until 
this day. 

When St. B randan and the hermits came to that 
fairy isle, they found it overgrown with cedars, and full 
of beautiful birds ; and he sat down under the cedars, 
and preached to all the birds in the air. They liked 
his sermons so well that they told the fishes in the sea ; 
and they came, and St. Brandan preached to them; 
and the fishes told the water-babies, who live in the 
caves under the isle; and they came up by hundreds 
every Sunday, and St. Brandan taught the water- 
babies for a great many years, till his eyes grew too 
dim to see, and his beard grew so long that he dared 
not walk for fear of treading on it, for then he might 
have tumbled down. At last he and the five hermits 
fell fast asleep under the cedar shades, and there they 
sleep unto this day. 

On still clear summer evenings, when the sun sinks 
down into the sea among golden cloud-capes and 
cloud-islands, and lakes and inlets of azure sky, the 
sailors fancy that they see, away to westward, St. 
Brandan’s fairy isle. But whether men can see it or 


ii6 


Water-Babies 


not, St. Brandan’s Isle once actually stood there; a 
great land out in the ocean, which has sunk beneath 
the waves. Old Plato called it Atlantis, and told 
strange tales of the wise men who lived therein, and of 
the wars they fought in the old times. 

When Tom got there he found that the isle stood 
on pillars, and that its roots were full of caves. There 
were pillars of black basalt, and pillars of green and 
crimson serpentine, and pillars ribboned with red and 
white and yellow sandstone, and there were blue grot- 
toes and white grottoes, all curtained and draped with 
sea- weeds, purple and crimson, green and brown ; and 
strewn with soft white sand on which the water-babies 
sleep every night. But, to keep the place clean and 
sweet, the crabs picked up all the scraps off the floor 
and ate them like so many monkeys ; while the rocks 
were covered with ten thousand sea-anemones and corals, 
who scavenged the water all day long and kept it nice 
and pure. To make up to them for having to do such 
unpleasant work, they were not left black and dirty, 
as poor chimney-sweeps and dustmen are. No; the 
fairies have dressed them all in the most beautiful 
colors and patterns, till they look like vast flower- 
beds of gay blossoms. An old gentleman named Fourier 
used to say that we ought to do the same by chimney- 


Water-Babies 


117 


sweeps and dustmen, and honor them instead of despis- 
ing them ; and he was a very clever old gentleman. 

Instead of watchmen and policemen to keep out 
disagreeable things at night, there were thousands 
and thousands of water-snakes, and most wonderful 
creatures they were. They were dressed in green 
velvet, and black velvet, and purple velvet ; and were 
all jointed in rings; and some of them had eyes in 
their tails; and some had eyes in every joint, so that 
they kept a very sharp lookout. If any wicked thing 
came by, out they rushed upon it ; and then out of 
each of their hundreds of feet there sprang a whole 
cutler^s shop of 


Lances, 

Fishhooks, 

Bradawls, 

Gimlets, 

Corkscrews, 

Pins, 

Needles, 


Scythes, 

Billhooks, 

Pickaxes, 

Forks, 


Penknives, 

Javelins, 

Sabres, 


And so forth. 


which stabbed, shot, pricked, and scratched those 
naughty beasts so terribly that they had to run for 
their lives, or else be chopped into small pieces and be 
eaten afterward. 


ii8 


Water-Babies 


There were water-babies in thousands — all the little 
children who are untaught and brought up heathen, and 
all who come to grief by ill-usage or ignorance or neglect ; 
and all the little children in alleys and courts, and tum- 
ble-down cottages, who die by fever, and cholera, and 
measles, and other complaints which no one has any 
business to have. 

I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks, and 
left off tormenting dumb animals, now that he had 
plenty of playfellows to amuse him. Instead of that, 
I am sorry to say, he would meddle with the creatures, 
all but the water-snakes, for they would stand no non- 
sense. So he tickled the madrepores, to make them 
shut up ; and frightened the crabs, to make them hide 
in the sand and peep out at him with the tips of their 
eyes; and put stones into the anemones’ mouths to 
make them fancy that their dinner was coming. 

The other children warned him, and said, ^^Take 
care what you are at. Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is 
coming.” 

But Tom never heeded them, being quite riotous 
with high spirits, till, one Friday morning early, Mrs. 
Bedonebyasyoudid came indeed. 

A very tremendous lady she was; and when the 
children saw her they all stood in a row, very upright. 


Water-Babies 


119 

and smoothed down their bathing dresses, and put 
their hands behind them, just as if they were going to 
be examined by the inspector. 

She had on a black bonnet, and a black shawl, and 
a pair of large green spectacles, and she had a great 
hooked nose, and under her arm she carried a great 
birch-rod. She was so ugly that Tom was tempted 
to make faces at her, but did not; for he did not 
admire the look of the birch-rod under her arm. 

She looked at the children one by one, and seemed 
very much pleased with them, and then began giving 
them all sorts of nice sea-things — sea-cakes, sea- 
apples, sea-oranges, sea-toffee; and to the very best 
of all she gave sea-ices made out of sea-cows’ cream. 

Little Tom watched all these sweet things given 
away, till his mouth watered and his eyes grew as 
round as an owl’s. He hoped that his turn would 
come at last; and so it did. For the lady called him 
up, and held out her fingers with something in them, 
and popped it into his mouth; and, lo and behold, it 
was a cold hard pebble. 

‘Wou are a very cruel woman,” said he, and began 
to whimper. 

‘^And you are a very cruel boy, who puts pebbles 
into the sea-anemones’ mouths to cheat them and 


120 


Water-Babies 


make them fancy that they had caught a good dinner ! 
As you did to them, so I must do to you/’ 

“Who told you that?” said Tom. 

“You did yourself, this very minute.” 

Tom had never opened his lips. So he was very 
much taken aback. 

“Yes; every one tells me exactly what they have 
done wrong, and that without knowing it themselves. 
So there is no use trying to hide anything from me. 
Now go and be a good boy, and I will put no more 
pebbles in your mouth, if you put none in the mouths 
of other creatures.” 

“I did not know there was any harm in it,” said 
Tom. 

“Then you know now. People continually say 
that to me : but I tell them, ‘ If you don’t know that 
fire burns, that is no reason that it should not burn 
you; and if you don’t know that dirt breeds fever, 
that is no reason why the fevers should not kill you.’ 
The lobster did not know that there was any harm in 
getting into the lobster pot ; but it caught him all the 
same.” 

“Dear me,” thought Tom, “she knows everything !” 

“And so, if you do not know that things are wrong, 
that is no reason why you should not be punished for 


Water-Babies 


121 


them; though not as much, my little man” (and the 
lady looked very kindly, after all), ‘‘as if you did know.” 

“Well, you are a little hard on a poor lad,” said Tom. 

“Not at all; I am the best friend you ever had in 
your life. But I will tell you I cannot help punish- 
ing people when they do wrong. I like it no more than 
they do; I am often very, very sorry for them, poor 
things : but I cannot help it. If I tried not to do it, 
I should do it all the same. For I work by machinery, 
just like an engine, and am full of wheels and springs 
inside, and am wound up very carefully, so that I 
cannot help going.” 

“Was it long ago since they wound you up?” asked 
Tom. For the cunning little fellow thought, “She will 
run down some day ; or they may forget to wind her 
up, as old Grimes used to forget to wind up his watch 
when he came in from the public-house; and then I 
shall be safe.” 

“I was wound up once and for all so long ago that 
I forget all about it.” 

“Dear me,” said Tom, “you must have been made 
a long time!” 

“I never was made, my child, and I shall go for 
ever and ever ; for I am as old as Eternity, and yet as 
young as Time.” 


122 


Water-Babies 


There came over the lady’s face a very curious ex- 
pression — very solemn, and very sad; and yet very 
sweet. She looked up and away, as if she were gazing 
through the sea, and through the sky, at something 
far, far off ; and, as she did so, there came such a 
quiet, tender, patient, hopeful smile over her face, 
that Tom thought for the moment that she did not 
look ugly at all. No more she did ; for she was like a 
great many people who have not a pretty feature in 
their faces, and yet are lovely to behold and draw 
little children’s hearts to them at once ; because, though 
the house is plain enough, yet from the windows a 
beautiful and good spirit is looking forth. 

Tom smiled in her face, she looked so pleasant for the 
moment. And the strange fairy smiled too, and said : 
‘‘Yes. You thought me very ugly, did you not?” 

Tom hung down his head and got very red about 
the ears. 

“And I am very ugly. I am the ugliest fairy in the 
world ; and I shall be, till people behave themselves as 
they ought. Then I shall grow as handsome as my 
sister, who is the loveliest fairy in the world ; and her 
name is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. She begins 
where I end, and I begin where she ends; and those 
who will not listen to her must listen to me. Now, 


Water-Babies 


123 


all of you run away, except Tom ; and he may stay 
and see what I am going to do. It will be a very 
good warning for him to begin with, before he goes 
to school. 

‘‘Now, Tom, every Friday I come down here and 
call up all who have ill-used little children and serve 
them as they served the children.’’ 

At that Tom was frightened, and crept under a 
stone ; which made the two crabs who lived there very 
angry, and frightened their friend the butter-fish into 
flapping hysterics; but Tom would not move for 
them. 

First she called up a whole troop of foolish ladies, 
who pinch their children’s waists and toes; and she 
laced them all in tight stays, so that they were choked 
and sick, and their noses grew red, and their hands 
and feet swelled; and then she crammed their poor 
feet into the most dreadfully tight boots, and made 
them all dance, which they did most clumsily indeed ; 
and then she asked them how they liked it, and when 
they said not at all, she let them go, because they had 
only done it out of foolish fashion, fancying it was for 
their children’s good, as if wasps’ waists and pigs’ toes 
could be pretty, or wholesome, or of any use to any- 
body. 


124 


Water-Babies 


Then she called up all the careless nurserymaids, 
and stuck pins into them, and wheeled them about in 
baby carriages with tight straps across their stomachs 
and their heads and arms hanging over the side, till 
they were quite sick and stupid, and would have 
had sun-strokes; but, being under the water, they 
could only have water-strokes, which are nearly as 
bad. 

By that time she was so tired she had to go to 
luncheon. 

After luncheon she set to work again, and called up 
all the cruel schoolmasters ; and, when she saw them, 
she frowned most terribly, and set to work in earnest, 
as if the best part of the day’s work was to come. 

She boxed their ears, and thumped them over the 
head with rulers, and struck their hands with canes, 
and set them each three hundred thousand lines of 
Hebrew to learn by heart before she came back next 
Friday. At that they all cried and howled so that 
their breaths came up through the sea like bubbles out 
of soda-water. By that time she was so tired that 
she was glad to stop ; and, indeed, she had done a very 
good day’s work. 

Tom did not quite dislike the old lady, but he could 
not help thinking her a little spiteful — and no wonder 


Water-Babies 


125 

if she was, for, if she has to wait to grow handsome till 
people do as they would be done by, she will have to 
wait a very long time. 

Poor old Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ! she has a great 
deal of hard work before her, and had better have been 
born a washerwoman, and stood over a tub all day: 
but, you see, people cannot always choose their own 
profession. 

Tom longed to ask her one question ; and, after all, 
whenever she looked at him, she did not look cross; 
and now and then there was a funny smile on her face, 
and she chuckled to herself in a way which gave Tom 
courage. At last he said, ‘‘Pray, ma’am, may I ask 
you a question?” 

“Certainly, my little dear.” 

“Why don’t you bring all the bad masters here, and 
punish them too? The miners that knock about the 
poor collier-boys; and all the master sweeps, like my 
master. Grimes? I saw him fall into the water long 
ago; so I expected he would be here. I’m sure he 
was bad enough to me.” 

Then the old lady looked so stern that Tom was 
quite frightened, and sorry that he had been so bold. 
But she was not angry with him. She only answered, 
“I look after them all the week round; and they are 


126 


Water-Babies 


in a very different place from this, because they knew 
that they were doing wrong/’ 

She spoke very quietly; but there was something 
in her voice which made Tom tingle from head to foot, 
as if he had got into a shoal of sea-nettles. 

‘‘But these people,” she went on, “did not know 
that they were doing wrong : they were only stupid and 
impatient; and therefore I only punish them till they 
become patient and learn to use their common sense 
like reasonable beings. But as for chimney-sweeps 
and collier-boys, my sister has set good people to stop 
all that sort of thing; and very much obliged to her 
I am, for if she could only stop the cruel masters from 
ill-using poor children I should grow handsome at 
least a thousand years sooner. Now do you be a good 
boy, and when my sister, Madame Doasyouwould- 
BEDONEBY, comes on Sunday, perhaps she will take 
notice of you, and teach you how to behave. She 
understands that better than I do.” 

Tom was very glad to hear that there was no chance 
of meeting Grimes again, though he was a little sorry 
for him ; but he determined to be a very good boy all 
Saturday, and he was; for he never frightened one 
crab, nor tickled any live corals, nor put stones into 
the sea-anemones’ mouths, to make them fancy they 


Water-Babies 


127 


had got a dinner ; and, when Sunday morning came, 
sure enough, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came 
too. Whereat all the little children began dancing 
and clapping their hands, and Tom danced too with 
all his might. 

As for the pretty lady, I cannot tell you what the 
color of her hair was, or of her eyes. No more could 
Tom, for, when any one looks at her, all they can think 
of is that she has the sweetest, kindest, tenderest, 
funniest, merriest face they ever saw, or want to see. 
Tom saw that she was a very tall woman, as tall 
as her sister; but instead of being gnarly and scaly 
like her, she was the most nice, soft, fat, cuddly, deli- 
cious creature who ever took care of a baby; and she 
understood babies thoroughly. All her delight was, 
whenever she had a spare moment, to play with babies, 
in which she showed herself a woman of sense; for 
babies are the best company and the pleasantest play- 
fellows in the world; at least, so all the wise people 
in the world think. Therefore, when the children saw 
her, they naturally all caught hold of her, and pulled 
her till she sat down on a stone, and they climbed into 
her lap, and clung round her neck, and caught hold 
of her hands. Then they all put their thumbs into 
their mouths, and began cuddling and purring like so 


128 


Water-Babies 


many kittens. Those who could get nowhere else sat 
down on the sand and cuddled her feet — for no one, 
you know, wears shoes in the water, except old bathing- 
women, who are afraid of the water-babies pinching 
their horny toes. Tom stood staring at the other 
water-babies; for he could not understand what it 
was all about. 

‘‘And who are you, you little darling?’^ she said. 

“Oh, that is the new baby!’^ they all cried, pulling 
their thumbs out of their mouths; “and he can’t re- 
member having any mother.” So saying, they all 
put their thumbs back again, for they did not wish to 
lose any time. 

“Then I will be his mother, and he shall have the 
very best place.” 

She took Tom in her arms, and kissed him, and 
patted him, and talked to him, tenderly and low, such 
things as he had never heard before in his life; and 
Tom looked up into her eyes, and loved her, and loved, 
till he fell fast asleep. 

When he woke, she was telling the children a 
story. And, as she went on, the children took their 
thumbs out of their mouths and listened quite seri- 
ously; and Tom listened too, and never grew tired 
of listening. He listened so long that he fell fast 


Water-Babies 


129 

asleep again, and, when he woke, the lady was hold- 
ing him still. 

‘‘Don’t go away,” said little Tom. “This is so 
nice. I never had any one to cuddle me before.” 

“Don’t go away,” said all the children; “you have 
not sung us one song.” 

“Well, I have time for only one. So what shall it be ? ” 

“The doll you lost! The doll you lost!” cried all 
the babies at once. 

So the strange fairy sang : — 

I once had a sweet little doll, dean, 

The prettiest doll in the world ; 

Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears. 

And her hair was so charmingly curled. 

But I lost my poor httle doll, dears, 

As I played in the heath one day ; 

And I cried for her more than a week, dears. 

But I never could find where she lay. 

I found my poor httle doll, dears, 

As I played in the heath one day : 

Folks say she is terribly changed, dean, 

For her paint is all washed away. 

And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears, 

And her hair not the least bit curled : 

Yet, for old sakes* sake she is stiU, dears, 

The prettiest doU in the world. 


130 


Water-Babies 


‘^Now/’ said the fairy to Tom, “will you be a good 
boy, and torment no more sea-beasts, till I come back ? 

“And you will cuddle me again?’’ said Tom. 

“Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to 
take you with me and cuddle you all the way, only I 
must not and away she went. 

So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented 
no sea-beasts after that as long as he lived ; and he is 
quite ahve, I assure you, still. 



VI 

Y ou may fancy that Tom was quite good, when 
he had everything that he could want; but 
you would be very much mistaken. Being comfort- 
able is a good thing, but it does not make people 
good. Indeed, it sometimes makes them naughty. 


132 


Water-Babies 


And I am very sorry to say that this happened to 
Tom. For he grew so fond of the sea-lollipops that 
his foolish little head could think of nothing else, and 
he was always longing for more, and wondering when 
the strange lady would come again and give him some, 
and whether she would give him more than the 
others. He thought of nothing but lollipops by day, 
and dreamed of nothing else by night — and what 
happened then? 

He began to watch the lady to see where she kept 
the sweet things; and began hiding, and sneaking, 
and following her about, and pretending to be looking 
the other way, or going after something else, till he 
found out that she kept them in a beautiful mother- 
of-pearl cabinet, away in a deep crack of the rocks. 

He longed to go to the cabinet, and yet he was afraid. 
Then he longed again, and was less afraid; and at 
last, by continual thinking about it, he longed so 
violently that he was not afraid at all. One night, 
when all the other children were asleep, and he could 
not sleep for thinking of lollipops, he crept away 
among the rocks and got to the cabinet, and behold ! 
it was open. 

But, when he saw all the nice things inside, instead 
of being delighted, he was quite frightened and wished 



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Water-Babies 


133 


he had never come there. Then he thought he would 
touch them, and he did ; and then that he would taste 
one, and he did ; and then that he would eat one, and 
he did ; and then that he would eat two, and then three, 
and so on. Then he was terrified lest she should come 
and catch him, and began gobbling them down so fast 
that he did not taste them, nor have any pleasure in 
them. Then he felt sick, and concluded he would have 
only one more ; and then only one more again ; and so 
on till he had eaten them all up. 

All the while, close behind him, stood Mrs. Bedone- 
byasyoudid. 

Some people may say, “ But why did she not keep 
her cupboard locked?” Well, it may seem a very 
strange thing, but she never does keep her cupboard 
locked ; every one may go and taste for themselves, 
and fare accordingly. It is very odd, but so it is; 
and I am quite sure that she knows best. Perhaps 
she wishes people to learn to keep their fingers out of 
the fire by having them burned. 

She took off her spectacles, because she did not like 
to see too much; and in her pity her eyes filled with 
big tears. 

All she said was, ‘‘Ah, you poor little dear! you 
are just like all the rest.” 


134 


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But she said it to herself, and Tom neither heard 
nor saw her. 

What did the strange fairy do when she saw all her 
lollipops eaten? Did she fly at Tom, catch him by 
the scruff of the neck, hold him, hump him, hit him, 
poke him, pull him, pinch him, pound him, put him in 
the corner, shake him, slap him, set him on a cold stone 
to reconsider himself, and so forth ? 

If she had, she knew quite well Tom would have 
fought, and kicked, and bit, and said bad words, and 
turned again that moment into a naughty little heathen 
chimney-sweep, with his hand against every man, 
and every man^s hand against him. 

Did she question him, frighten him, threaten him, 
to make him confess? Not a bit. If she had, she 
would have tempted him to tell lies in his fright ; and 
that would have been worse for him, if possible, than 
even becoming a heathen chimney-sweep again. 

No. She just said nothing at all about the matter, 
not even when Tom came next day with the rest for 
sweet things. He was horribly afraid of coming, but 
he was still more afraid of sta3dng away lest any one 
should suspect him. He was dreadfully afraid, too, 
lest there should be no sweets — as was to be expected, 
he having eaten them all — and lest then the fairy 


Water-Babies 


135 

should inquire who had taken them. But, behold! 
she pulled out just as many as ever. 

When the fairy looked him full in the face he shook 
from head to foot. However, she gave him his share 
like the rest, and he thought within himself that she 
could not have found him out. 

But, when he put the sweets into his mouth, he hated 
the taste of them, and they made him sick; and 
terribly sick he was, and very cross and unhappy, all 
the week after. 

When next week came he had his share again, and 
again the fairy looked him full in the face, but more 
sadly than she had ever looked before. He could not 
bear the sweets, but took them. 

And, when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, he 
wanted to be cuddled like the rest, but she said very 
seriously, should like to cuddle you, but I cannot, 
you are so horny and prickly.’’ 

Tom looked at himself, and he was all over prickles, 
which was quite natural, for you must know that 
people’s souls make their bodies, just as a snail makes 
its shell. Therefore, when Tom’s soul grew all prickly 
with naughty tempers, his body could not help growing 
prickly too, so that nobody would cuddle him, or play 
with him, or even like to look at him. 


136 


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What could Tom do now but go away and hide in 
a corner and cry? For nobody would play with him, 
and he knew full well why. 

He was so miserable all that week that, when the 
ugly fairy came, and looked at him once more full in 
the face, more seriously and sadly than ever, he could 
stand it no longer and thrust the sweetmeats away, 
saying, ^‘No, I donT want any; I can’t bear them,” 
and then burst out crying, and told Mrs. Bedoneby- 
asyoudid every word as it happened. 

He was horribly frightened when he had done so, 
for he expected her to punish him very severely. But, 
instead, she only took him up and kissed him. 

^‘1 will forgive you, little man,” she said. “I 
always forgive every one the moment they tell me the 
truth of their own accord.” 

‘‘Then you will take away all these horrid prickles?” 

“That is a very different matter. You put them 
there yourself, and only you can take them away.” 

“But how can I do that ? ” asked Tom, crying afresh. 

“Well, I think it is time for you to go to school; so 
I shall fetch you a schoolmistress, who will teach you 
how to get rid of your prickles.” And she went away. 

Tom was frightened at the notion of a schoolmis- 
tress, for he thought she would certainly come with 


Water-Babies 


137 


a birch-rod or a cane; but he comforted himself, at 
last, that she might be something like the old woman 
in Vendale — which she was not in the least ; for, 
when the fairy brought her, she was the most beautiful 
little girl that ever was seen, with long curls floating 
behind her like a golden cloud, and long robes floating 
all round her like a silver one. 

There he is,” said the fairy; ‘‘and you must teach 
him to be good.” 

“I know,” said the httle girl; but she did not seem 
quite to like the task, for she put her finger in her 
mouth, and looked at Tom under her brows ; and Tom 
put his finger in his mouth, and looked at her under 
his brows, for he was horribly ashamed of himself. 

The little girl seemed hardly to know how to begin ; 
and perhaps she would never have begun at all, if Tom 
had not burst out crying, and begged her to teach him 
to be good and help him to cure his prickles. At that 
she grew so tender-hearted that she began teaching 
him as prettily as ever child was taught in the world. 

She taught Tom every day in the week; only on 
Sundays she always went away home, and the kind 
fairy took her place. And, before the fairy had taught 
Tom many Sundays, his prickles had vanished quite 
away and his skin was smooth again. 


138 


Water-Babies 


‘‘Dear meT’ said the little girl; “why, I know you 
now. You are the very same little chimney-sweep 
who came into my bedroom.’’ 

“Dear me!” cried Tom. “And I know you, too, 
now. You are the little white lady whom I saw in bed.” 
And he jumped at her, and longed to hug and kiss her ; 
but did not, remembering that she was a lady born. 
So he only jumped round and round her, till he was 
quite tired. 

Then they began telling each other all their story 
— how he had got into the water, and she had fallen 
over the rock ; and how he had swum down to the sea, 
and how she had flown out of the window, and how 
this, that, and the other, till it was all talked out; and 
then they both began over again, and I can’t say which 
of the two talked fastest. 

Then they set to work at their lessons again, and 
both liked them so well that they went on till seven 
full years were gone. 

You may fancy that Tom was quite content and 
happy all those seven years ; but the truth is, he was 
not. He had always one thing on his mind, and that 
was — where little Ellie went when she went home on 
Sundays. 

“To a very beautiful place,” she said. 


Water-Babies 


139 

But what was the beautiful place like, and where 
was it? 

All that good little Ellie could say was that it was 
worth all the rest of the world put together. And of 
course that only made Tom the more anxious to go 
likewise. 

‘‘Miss Ellie,’’ he said at last, “I will know why 
I cannot go with you when you go home on 
Sundays, or I shall have no peace, and give you 
none either.” 

“You must ask the fairies that.” 

So when the fairy, Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, came 
next, Tom asked her. 

“Little boys who are only fit to play with sea-beasts 
cannot go there,” she said. “Those who go there 
must go first where they do not like, and do what they 
do not like, and help somebody they do not like.” 

“Why, did Ellie do that?” 

“Ask her.” 

Ellie blushed, and said, “Yes, Tom; I did not like 
coming here at first ; I was so much happier at home, 
where it is always Sunday. And I was afraid of you, 
Tom, at first, because — because ” 

“Because I was all over prickles? But I am not 
prickly now, am I, Miss Ellie ? ” 


140 


Water-Babies 


“No,’’ said Ellie. “I like you very much now; 
and I like coming here, too.” 

“Perhaps,” said the fairy to Tom, “you will learn 
to Hke going where you don’t like, and helping some 
one that you don’t like, as Ellie has.” 

But Tom put his finger in his mouth, and hung his 
head down ; for he did not see that at all. 

So when Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came, Tom 
asked her; for he thought, “She is not so strict as her 
sister, and perhaps she may let me off more easily.” 

But she told him just what the first fairy did. 

Tom was very unhappy at that; and, when Ellie 
went home on Sunday, he fretted and cried all day, 
and did not care to listen to the fairy’s stories about 
good children, though they were prettier than ever. 
Indeed, the more he heard, the less he liked to listen, 
because they were all about children who did what they 
did not like, and took trouble for other people, and 
worked to feed their little brothers and sisters, instead 
of caring only for their play ; and Tom ran away and 
hid among the rocks. 

When Ellie came back, he was shy with her, be- 
cause he fancied she looked down on him and thought 
him a coward. And he grew quite cross with her, be- 
cause she was superior to him and did what he could 


Water-Babies 


141 

not do. Poor Ellie was quite surprised and sad ; and 
at last Tom burst out crying; but he would not tell 
her what was really in his mind. 

All the while he was eaten up with curiosity to know 
where Ellie went ; so that he began not to care for his 
playmates, or for the sea-palace or anything else. He 
grew so discontented with everything round him that 
he did not care to stay, and did not care where he went. 

‘‘Well,^’ he said at last, “ I am so miserable here. 
I’ll go, if only you will go with me?” 

“Ah!” said Ellie, “I wish I might; but the worst 
of it is that the fairy says you must go alone, if you go 
at all. Now don’t poke that poor crab, Tom ” (for 
he was feeling very naughty and mischievous), “or 
the fairy will have to punish you.” 

Tom was very nearly saying, “I don’t care if she 
does ;” but he stopped himself. 

“I know what she wants me to do,” he said, whin- 
ing most dolefully. “She wants me to go after that 
horrid old Grimes. I don’t like him, that’s certain. 
And if I find him he will turn me into a chimney-sweep, 
I know. That’s what I have been afraid of all along.” 

“No, he won’t — I know as much as that. No- 
body can turn water-babies into sweeps, or hurt them 
at all, as long as they are good.” 


142 


Water-Babies 


said naughty Tom, ‘‘I see what you want; 
you are persuading me to go, because you are tired of 
me and want to get rid of me.’’ 

Little Ellie opened her eyes very wide at that, and 
they were brimming over with tears. 

‘‘Oh, Tom, Tom!” she said, very mournfully — 
and then she cried, “Oh, Tom 1 where are you?” 

And Tom cried, “Oh, Ellie, where are you?” 

For neither of them could see each other — not the 
least. Little Ellie vanished quite away, and Tom 
heard her voice calling him, and growing fainter and 
fainter, till all was silent. 

He swam up and down among the rocks, into all the 
halls and chambers, faster than ever he swam before, 
but could not find her. He shouted after her, but she 
did not answer; he asked all the other children, but 
they had not seen her ; and at last he went up to the 
top of the water and began crying and screaming for 
Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid — which perhaps was the 
best thing to do — for she came in a moment. 

“ O dear, O dear 1 ” said Tom. “ I have been naughty 
to Ellie, and I have killed her.” 

“Not quite that,” said the fairy; “but I have sent 
her home, and she will not come back for I do not know 
how long.” 


Water-Babies 


143 


At that Tom cried bitterly. 

‘‘How cruel of you to send Ellie away!” sobbed 
Tom. “However, I will find her again, if I go to the 
world’s end to look for her.” 

The fairy did not slap Tom, and tell him to hold his 
tongue : but she took him on her lap very kindly, just 
as her sister would have done, and put him in mind 
how it was not her fault, because she was wound up 
inside, like watches, and could not help doing things 
whether she liked to or not. Then she told him how 
he had been in the nursery long enough, and must go 
out now and see the world, if he intended ever to be a 
man; and how he must go all alone by himself, as 
every one else has to go. She told him how many fine 
things there were to be seen in the world, and what an 
odd, pleasant, orderly, respectable, well-managed, and, 
on the whole, successful sort of a place it was, if people 
would only be tolerably brave and honest and good in 
it ; and then she told him not to be afraid of anything 
he met, for nothing would harm him if he remembered 
all his lessons and did what he knew was right. At 
last she comforted Tom so much that he was quite 
eager to go, and wanted to set out that minute. “ Only,” 
he said, “if I might see Ellie once before I went I” 

“Why do you want that?” 


144 


Water-Babies 


'‘Because — because I should be so much happier 
if I thought she had forgiven me” 

And in the twinkling of an eye there stood Ellie, 
smiling, and looking so happy that Tom longed to kiss 
her, but was afraid it would not be respectful, because 
she was a lady born. 

"I am going, Ellie!’’ said Tom. "I am going, if 
it is to the world’s end. But I don’t like going at all, 
and that’s the truth.” 

"Pooh! pooh! pooh!” said the fairy. "You will 
like it very well indeed, you little rogue. Come here, 
and see what happens to people who do only what is 
pleasant.” 

She took out of one of her cupboards (she had all 
sorts of mysterious cupboards in the cracks of the rocks) 
the most wonderful waterproof book, full of photo- 
graphs; and her photographs did not merely repre- 
sent Hght and shade, but color also, and the children 
looked with great delight for the opening of the book. 

On the title-page was written, "The History of 
the famous nation of the Doasyoulikes, who came 
away from the country of Hardwork, because they 
wanted to play on the Jews’-harp all day long.” 

In the first picture they saw these DoasyouHkes 
living in the land of Readymade, at the foot of the 


Water-Babies 


I4S 

Happy-go-lucky Mountains, where flapdoodle grows 
wild. 

They Hved very much such a life as those jolly old 
Greeks in Sicily, and really there seemed to be great 
excuses for them, for they had no need to work. 

Instead of houses, they lived in beautiful caves, and 
bathed in the warm springs three times a day. 

They were very fond of music, but it was too much 
trouble to learn the piano or the violin; and as for 
dancing, that would have been too great an exertion. 
So they sat on ant-hills all day long, and played on the 
Jews’-harp ; and, if the ants bit them, why they just 
got up and went to the next ant-hill, till they were 
bitten there likewise. 

And they sat under the flapdoodle trees, and let 
the flapdoodle drop into their mouths ; and under the 
vines, and squeezed the grape-juice down their throats ; 
and, if any little pigs ran about ready roasted, crying, 
‘Xome and eat me,’’ as was their fashion in that 
country, they waited till the pigs ran against their 
mouths, and then took a bite, and were content, just 
as so many oysters would have been. 

They needed no weapons, for no enemies ever came 
near their land; and no tools, for everything was 
ready-made to their hand. 


146 


Water-Babies 


There were never such comfortable, easy-going, 
happy-go-lucky people in the world. 

‘‘Well, that is a jolly life,'’ said Tom. 

“You think so?" said the fairy. “Do you see 
that great peaked mountain there in the picture with 
smoke coming out of its top?" 

“Yes." 

“And do you see all those ashes, and slag, and 
cinders, lying about?" 

“Yes." 

“Then turn over five hundred years, and you will 
see what happens next." 

And behold the mountain had blown up like a bar- 
rel of gunpowder, and then boiled over like a kettle ; 
whereby one- third of the Doasyoulikes were blown 
into the air, and another third were smothered in 
ashes ; so that there was only one-third left. 

“You see," said the fairy, “what comes of living on 
a burning mountain." 

“ Oh, why did you not warn them ? " said little Ellie. 

“I did warn them all that I could. I let the smoke 
come out of the mountain ; and wherever there is 
smoke there is fire. And I laid the ashes and cinders 
all about; and wherever there are cinders, cinders 
may be again. But they did not like to face facts. 


Water-Babies 


147 


my dears, and so they invented a cock-and-bull story 
that the smoke was the breath of a giant whom some 
god or other had buried under the mountain ; and that 
the cinders were what the dwarfs roasted the little pigs 
whole with, and other nonsense of that kind. When 
folks are in that humor, I cannot teach them, save by 
the good old birch-rod.’^ 

Then she turned over the next five hundred years, 
and there were the remnant of the Doasyoulikes, doing 
as they liked, as before. They were too lazy to move 
away from the mountain; so they said, ‘‘If it has 
blown up once, that is all the more reason that it should 
not blow up again.’’ 

They were few in number, but they only said, “The 
more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare.” 

However, that was not quite true, for all the flap- 
doodle trees were killed by the volcano, and they had 
eaten all the roast pigs. So they had to live very 
poorly on nuts and roots which they scratched out of 
the ground with sticks. Some of them talked of sow- 
ing corn, as their ancestors used to do before they 
came into the land of Read)nnade ; but they had for- 
gotten how to make ploughs (they had forgotten even 
how to make Jews’-harps by this time), and had eaten 
all the seed-corn which they brought out of the land of 


148 


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Hardwork years since ; and of course it was too much 
trouble to go away and find more. So they lived 
miserably on roots and nuts, and all the weakly little 
children died. 

“Why,’’ said Tom, “they are no better than savages.” 

“And look how ugly they are all getting,” said Ellie. 

“Yes; when people live on poor vegetables instead 
of roast beef and plum pudding, their jaws grow large, 
and their lips grow coarse.” 

She turned over the next five hundred years. And 
there they were all living up in trees, and making nests 
to keep off the rain. And underneath the trees lions 
were prowling about. 

“Why,” said Ellie, “the lions seem to have eaten a 
good many of them, for there are very few left now.” 

“Yes,” said the fairy; “you see it was only the 
strongest and most active ones who could climb the 
trees, and so escape.” 

“But what great, hulking, broad-shouldered chaps 
they are,” said Tom; “they are a rough lot as ever 
I saw.” 

“Yes, they are getting very strong now, for the 
ladies will not marry any but the strongest and fiercest 
gentlemen, who can help them up the trees out of the 
lions’ way.” 


Water-Babies 


149 


She turned over the next five hundred years. And 
in that they were fewer still, and stronger, and fiercer ; 
but their feet had changed shape very oddly, for they 
laid hold of the branches with their great toes, as if 
they had been thumbs. 

The children were very much surprised, and asked 
the fairy whether that was her doing. 

‘^Yes, and no,’’ she said, smiling. ^‘It was only 
those who could use their feet as well as their hands 
who could get a good living, or, indeed, get married ; 
so that they got the best of everything and starved 
out all the rest ; and those who are left keep up a regu- 
lar breed of toe- thumb-men.” 

“But there is a hairy one among them,” said Ellie. 

“Ah!” said the fairy, “that will be a great man in 
his time, and chief of all the tribe.” 

When she turned over the next five hundred years, 
it was true. 

For this hairy chief had had hairy children, and 
they hairier children still ; and every woman wished to 
marry a hairy husband, and have hairy children too ; 
for the climate was growing so damp that none but the 
hairy ones could live. All the rest coughed and 
sneezed, and had sore throats, and died before they 
could grow up to be men and women. 


Water-Babies 


ISO 

Then the fairy turned over the next five hundred 
years. And they were fewer still. 

‘^Why, there is one on the ground picking up roots/ ^ 
said Ellie, “and he cannot walk upright.” 

No more he could; for in the same way that the 
shape of their feet had altered, the shape of their backs 
had altered also. 

“Why,” cried Tom, “I declare they are all apes.” 

“Something fearfully like it, poor foolish creatures! ” 
said the fairy. “They are grown so stupid now that 
they can hardly think, for none of them has used 
his wits for many hundred years. They have al- 
most forgotten, too, how to talk. For each stupid 
child forgot some of the words it heard from its stupid 
parents, and had not wits enough to make fresh words 
for itself. Besides, they are grown so fierce and sus- 
picious and brutal that they keep out of each other’s 
way, and mope and sulk in the dark forests, never 
hearing each other’s voice, till they have forgotten 
almost what speech is like. I am afraid they will all 
be apes very soon.” 

In the next five hundred years they were all dead 
and gone, by bad food and wild beasts and hunters, 
except one tremendous old fellow who stood full seven 
feet high; and a hunter came up to him, and shot 


Water-Babies 


iSi 

him as he stood roaring and thumping his breast. 
He remembered that his ancestors had once been men, 
and tried to say, “Am I not a man and a brother?” 
but had forgotten how to use his tongue ; and then he 
had tried to call for a doctor, but he had forgotten the 
word for one. So all he said was “Ubboboo!” and 
died. 

That was the end of the great and jolly nation of 
the Doasyoulikes. And, when Tom and Ellie came 
to the end of the book, they looked very sad and solemn. 

“But could you not have saved them from becom- 
ing apes?” said little Ellie. 

“At first, my dear; if only they would have be- 
haved like men, and set to work to do what they did 
not like. But the longer they waited, and behaved 
like the dumb beasts, who only do what they like, the 
stupider and clumsier they grew ; till at last they were 
past all cure, for they had thrown their own wits away.” 

“And where are they all now?” asked Ellie. 

“Exactly where they ought to be, my dear,” said 
the fairy solemnly, half to herself, as she closed the 
wonderful book. “Folks say that I can make 
beasts into men by circumstance, and selection, and 
competition, and so forth. Well, perhaps they 
are right; and perhaps, again, they are wrong. But 


Water-Babies 


IS2 

let them recollect this, that there is a downhill as 
well as an uphill road; and, if I can turn beasts into 
men, I can, by the same laws of circumstance, and 
selection, and competition, turn men into beasts. You 
were very near being turned into a beast once or twice, 
Tom. Indeed, if you had not made up your mind to 
go on this journey and see the world, I am not sure 
but that you would have ended as an eft in a pond.’’ 

‘‘O dear me!” said Tom; ‘‘sooner than that, and 
be all over slime. I’ll go this minute.” 



N ow,” said Tom, “I am ready to be off, if it’s 
to the world’s end.” 

“Ah!” said the fairy, “that is a brave, good boy. 
But you must go farther than the world’s end, if you 
want to find Mr. Grimes ; for he is at the Other-end- 


153 



1 54 


Water-Babies 


of-Nowhere. You must go to Shiny Wall, and through 
the white gate that never was opened ; and then you 
will come to Peacepool and Mother Carey’s Haven, 
where the good whales go when they die. And 
Mother Carey will tell you the way to the Other- 
end-of-Nowhere, and there you will find Mr. Grimes.” 

“O dear!” said Tom. ‘‘But I do not know my 
way to Shiny Wall, or where it is at all.” 

“Little boys must take the trouble to find out 
things for themselves, or they will never grow to 
be men. You must ask all the beasts in the sea and 
the birds in the air, and if you have been good to 
them, some of them will tell you the way to Shiny 
Wall.” 

“Well,” said Tom, “it will be a long journey, so 
I had better start at once. Good-by, Miss Ellie; 
you know I am getting to be a big boy, and I must 
go out and see the world.” 

“I know you must,” said Ellie; “but you will 
not forget me, Tom. I shall wait here till you come.” 

She shook hands with him, and bade him good-by. 
Tom promised not to forget her, but his little whirl- 
about of a head was so full of the notion of going 
out to see the world that he forgot her in five 
minutes. 


Water-Babies 


IS5 

He asked all the beasts in the sea, and all the birds 
in the air, but none of them knew the way to Shiny 
Wall. For he was still too far south. 

Then he met a ship, larger than he had ever seen 
before — a gallant ocean-steamer, with a long cloud 
of smoke trailing behind. He wondered how she went 
without sails, and swam up to her to see. A school 
of dolphins were running races round and round her, 
going three feet for her one, and Tom asked them the 
way to Shiny Wall: but they did not know. Then 
he tried to find out how she moved. At last he saw 
her screw, and was so delighted with it that he played 
under her quarter all day, till he nearly had his nose 
knocked off by the fans and thought it time to move. 
Then he watched the sailors on deck, and the ladies 
with their bonnets and parasols. 

At last there came out into the quarter-gallery a 
very pretty lady, in deep black widow’s mourning, 
and in her arms a baby. She leaned over the rail, 
and looked back toward England; and as she looked 
she sang. 

Her voice was so soft and low, and the music of 
the air so sweet, that Tom could have listened to it 
all day. But as she held the baby over the rail, 
to show it the dolphins leaping and the water 


156 Water-Babies 

gurgling in the ship’s wake, lo and behold ! the 
baby saw Tom. 

He was quite sure of that ; for when their eyes met, 
the baby smiled and held out its hands; and Tom 
smiled and held out his hands too ; and the baby 
kicked and leaped as if it wanted to jump overboard 
to him. 

‘‘What do you see, my darling?” said the lady; 
and her eyes followed the baby’s till she too caught 
sight of Tom, swimming about among the foam-beads 
below. 

She gave a little shriek and start ; and then she said, 
quietly, “Babies in the sea? Well, perhaps it is the 
happiest place for them;” and waved her hand to 
Tom, and cried, “Wait a little, darling, and perhaps 
we shall go with you.” 

At that an old nurse came out and talked to her, 
and drew her in. Tom turned away northward, sad 
and wondering, and watched the great steamer slide 
away into the dusk, and the lights on board peep out 
one by one, and die out again, and the long bar of 
smoke fade away into the evening mist, till all was out 
of sight. 

He swam northward day after day, till at last he met 
the King of the Herrings, with a curry-comb growing 


Water-Babies 


157 

out of his nose, and a sprat in his mouth, and asked 
him the way to Shiny Wall. 

The King of the Herrings bolted his sprat head fore- 
most, and said: ^^If I were you, young gentleman, I 
should go to the Allalonestone, and ask the last of the 
Gairfowl.^ She is of a very ancient clan, very nearly 
as ancient as my own ; and knows a good deal which 
these modern upstarts donT.^’ 

Tom asked his way to her, and the King of the 
Herrings told him very kindly, for he was a courteous 
old gentleman, though he was horribly ugly and 
strangely bedizened. 

But, just as Tom had thanked him and set off, he 
called after him, “Hi ! I say, can you fly?’’ 

“I never tried,” says Tom. “Why?” 

“Because, if you can, I should advise you to say 
nothing to the old lady about it. There; take a 
hint. Good-by.” 

Away Tom went for seven days and seven nights 
due northwest, till he came to a great codbank, the 
like of which he had never seen before. The great cod 
lay below in tens of thousands and gobbled shell- 
fish all day long ; and the blue sharks roved above in 
hundreds and gobbled the cod when they came up. 

^ The gairfowl were the great auks. 


Water-Babies 


IS8 

So they ate, and ate, and ate each other, as they had 
done since the making of the world; for no man had 
come there yet to catch them. 

There he saw the last of the Gairfowl standing on 
the Allalonestone. And a very grand old lady she 
was, full three feet high, and bolt upright, like some 
old Highland chieftainess. She had on a black velvet 
gown, and a white apron, and a large pair of white 
spectacles, which made her look rather odd: but it 
was the ancient fashion of her house. 

Instead of wings, she had two little feathery arms, 
with which she fanned herself, and complained of the 
dreadful heat; and she kept on crooning an old song 
to herself, which she learned when she was a little 
baby-bird, long ago — 

“Two little birds they sat on a stone, 

One swam away, and then there was one, 

With a fal-lal-la-lady. 

“ The other swam after, and then there was none, 

And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady. 

Tom came up to her very humbly, and made his 
bow ; and the first thing she said was — 

“ Have you wings? Can you fly?’’ 


Water-Babies 


159 

O, dear, no, ma’am ; I should not think of such 
a thing,” said Tom. 

‘^Then I shall have great pleasure in talking to 
you, my dear. It is quite refreshing to see anything 
without wings. They must all have wings, forsooth, 
now, every new upstart sort of bird. What can they 
want with flying, and raising themselves above their 
proper station in life? In the days of my ancestors 
no birds ever thought of having wings, and did very 
well without ; and now they all laugh at me because I 
keep to the good old fashion. Why, the very marrocks 
and dovekies have got wings, the vulgar creatures, 
and poor little ones enough they are; and my own 
cousins too, the razor-bills, who are gentle-folk born 
and ought to know better than to ape their inferiors.” 

So she was running on, while Tom tried to get in 
a word edgeways ; and at last, when the old lady got 
out of breath and began fanning herself again, he 
asked if she knew the way to Shiny Wall. 

‘‘Shiny Wall? Who should know better than I? 
We all came from Shiny Wall, thousands of years ago, 
when it was decently cold, but now, what with the 
heat, and what with these vulgar winged things who 
fly up and down and eat everything, so that gentle- 
people’s hunting is all spoiled, and one really cannot 


i6o 


Water-Babies 


get one’s living, nor hardly venture off the rock for 
fear of being flown against by some creature that would 
not have dared to come within a mile of one a thousand 
years ago — what was I saying ? Why, we have quite 
gone down in the world, my dear, and have nothing 
left but our honor. And I am the last of my family. 
A friend of mine and I came and settled on this rock, 
when we were young, to be out of the way of low 
people. Once we were a great nation and spread over 
all the Northern isles. But men shot us, and knocked 
us on the head, and took our eggs — why, if you will 
believe it, they say that on the coast of Labrador the 
sailors used to lay a plank from the rock on board the 
thing called their ship, and drive us along the plank 
by hundreds, till we tumbled down into the ship 
in heaps ; and then, I suppose, they ate us, the horrid 
fellows ! Well — but — what was I saying ? At last, 
there was none of us left, except on the old Gairfowl- 
skerry, just off the Iceland coast, up which no man 
could climb. Even there we had no peace; for one 
day, when I was quite a young girl, the land rocked, 
and the sea boiled, and the sky grew dark, and all the 
air was filled with smoke and dust, and down tumbled 
the old Gairfowlskerry into the sea. The dovekies 
and marrocks, of course, all flew away; but we were 


Water-Babies 


i6i 


too proud to do that. Some of us were dashed to 
pieces, and some drowned; and those who were left 
got away to Eldey, and the dovekies tell me they are 
all dead now, and that another Gairfowlskerry has 
risen out of the sea close to the old one, but that it is 
such a poor flat place that it is not safe to live on: 
and so here I am left alone.” 

^^If you only had had wings!” said Tom; ‘‘then 
you might all have flown away too.” 

“My dear, a gentleman came hither with me, and 
after we had been here some time he wanted to marry 
— in fact, he actually proposed to me. Well, I can't 
blame him ; I was young and very handsome then, I 
don't deny : but I felt it my duty to snub him, and 
howk him, and peck him continually, to keep him at 
his proper distance; and, to tell the truth, I once 
pecked him a little too hard, poor fellow, and he 
tumbled backward off the rock, and — really, it was 
very unfortunate, but it was not my fault — a shark 
coming by saw him flapping, and snapped him up. 
And since then I have lived all alone — 

With a fal-lal-la-lady. 

And soon I shall be gone, my little dear, and nobody 
will miss me ; and then the poor stone will be left all 
alone.” 


i 62 


Water-Babies 


please, which is the way to Shiny Wall?” 
said Tom. 

‘'Oh, you must go, my little dear — you must go. 
Let me see — I am sure — -that is — really, my poor 
old brains are getting quite puzzled. Do you know, 
my little dear, I am afraid, if you want to know, you 
must ask some of these vulgar birds, for I have quite 
forgotten.” 

And the poor old Gairfowl began to cry tears of 
pure oil; and Tom was quite sorry for her, and for 
himself, too, for he was at his wit’s end whom to ask. 

But there came by a flock of petrels, who are 
Mother Carey’s own chickens ; and Tom thought 
them much prettier than Lady Gairfowl, and so 
perhaps they were ; for Mother Carey had had a 
great deal of fresh experience between the time that 
she invented the Gairfowl and the time that she 
invented them. They flitted along like a flock of 
black swallows, and hopped and skipped from wave to 
wave, lifting up their little feet behind them so 
daintily, and whistling to each other so tenderly, 
that Tom fell in love with them at once, and called 
to them to know the way to Shiny Wall. 

“Shiny Wall? Do you want Shiny Wall? Then 
come with us and we will show you. We are Mother 


Water-Babies 163 

Carey’s own chickens, and she sends us out over all 
the seas to show the good birds the way home.” 

Tom was delighted, and swam off to them, after 
he had made his bow to the Gairfowl. She would 
not return his bow, but held herself bolt upright, 
and wept tears of oil as she sang : 

“ And so the poor stone was left all alone ; 

With a fal-lal-la-lady.” 

But she was wrong there; for the stone was not 
left all alone; and the next time that Tom goes by 
it he will see a sight worth seeing. 

The old Gairfowl is gone, but there are better 
things come in her place, and when Tom comes he 
will see the fishing-smacks anchored there in hundreds, 
from Scotland, and from Ireland, and from all the 
Northern ports. The men will be hauling in the great 
cod by thousands, till their hands are sore from the 
lines ; and they will be making cod-liver oil and salting 
down the fish ; and there will be a man-of-war steamer 
there to protect them, and a lighthouse to show them 
the way ; and you and I, perhaps, shall go some day 
to the Allalonestone, and we shall hear the sailors 
boast that it is not the worst jewel in the English 
monarch’s crown, for there are eighty miles of cod- 
bank and food for all the poor folk in the land. Then 


164 


Water-Babies 


we shall not be sorry because we cannot get a Gair- 
fowl to stuff, much less find Gairfowl enough to drive 
them into stone pens and slaughter them, as the old 
Norsemen did, or drive them on board along a plank 
till the ship was victualled with them, as the old 
English and French rovers used to do. 

Now Tom was all agog to start for Shiny Wall, 
but the petrels said no. They must go first to All- 
fowlsness, and wait there for the great gathering of 
all the sea-birds, before they start for their summer 
breeding-places far away in the Northern isles; and 
there they would be sure to find some birds which were 
going to Shiny Wall : but where Allfowlsness was, he 
must promise never to tell, lest men should go there 
and shoot the birds, and stuff them, and put them into 
stupid museums, instead of leaving them to play 
and breed and work in Mother Carey ^s water-garden, 
where they ought to be. 

So where Allfowlsness is nobody must know; and 
all that is to be said about it is that Tom waited 
there many days; and as he waited he saw a very 
curious sight. On the rabbit burrows on the shore 
there gathered hundreds and hundreds of hoodie- 
crows. And they made such a noise that Tom came 
on shore and went to see what was the matter. 


Water-Babies 


165 

There he found them holding their great caucus, 
which they hold every year in the North; and all 
their stump-orators were speechifying, and for a plat- 
form the speaker stood on an old sheep’s skull. 

They cawed and cawed, and boasted of all the 
clever things they had done ; how many dead 
bullocks they had eaten, and how many young 
grouse they had swallowed whole, and how many 
grouse-eggs they had flown away with stuck on the 
point of their bills, which is the hoodiecrow’s par- 
ticularly clever feat, of which he is as proud as a 
gipsy is of doing the hokanybaro; and what that is 
I won’t tell you. 

At last they brought out the prettiest, neatest 
young lady-crow that ever was seen, and set her in 
the middle, and all began abusing and rating, and 
bullyragging at her, because she had stolen no grouse- 
eggs and had actually dared to say that she would 
not steal any. She was to be tried publicly by their 
laws (for the hoodies always try some offenders in 
their great yearly parliament). There she stood in 
the middle, in her black gown and gray hood, looking 
as meek and as neat as a Quakeress, and they all 
bawled at her at once. 

It was in vain that she pleaded — 


Water-Babies 


i66 

That she did not like grouse-eggs ; 

That she could get her living very well without them ; 

That she was afraid to eat them, for fear of the gamekeepers ; 
That she had not the heart to eat them, because the grouse 
were such pretty, kind, jolly birds ; 

And a dozen reasons more. 

For all the other crows attacked her, and pecked 
her to death before Tom could come to help her; 
and then flew away very proud of what they had 
done. 

Was not this a scandalous transaction ? 

But the fairies took the good crow and gave her 
nine new sets of feathers, and turned her at last into 
the most beautiful bird of paradise with a green velvet 
suit and a long tail, and sent her to eat fruit in the 
Spice Islands where cloves and nutmegs grow. 

Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid settled her account with 
the wicked hoodies. For, as they flew away, what 
should they find but a dead dog — on which they all 
set to work, pecking and gobbling and cawing and 
quarrelling to their hearts’ content. But the moment 
afterward they all threw up their bills into the air, 
and gave one screech; and then turned head over 
heels backward, and fell down dead, one hundred and 
twenty- three of them at once. For why? The fairy 


Water-Babies 167 

had told the gamekeeper in a dream to fill the dead 
dog full of strychnine ; and so he did. 

After a while the birds began to gather at All- 
fowlsness in thousands and tens of thousands, blacken- 
ing all the air; swans and geese, and eiders, divers 
and loons, auks and razorbills, petrels and terns, with 
gulls beyond all naming or numbering; and they 
paddled and washed and splashed and brushed them- 
selves on the sand, till the shore was white with 
feathers ; and they quacked and clucked and gabbled 
and chattered and screamed and whooped as they 
talked over matters with their friends, and settled 
where they were to go and breed that summer, till 
you might have heard them ten miles off; and lucky 
it was for them that there was no one to hear them 
but the old keeper, who lived all alone on the Ness 
in a turf hut thatched with heather and fringed round 
with great stones slung across the roof by ropes, lest 
the winter gales should blow the hut right away. But 
he never minded the birds nor hurt them, because they 
were not in season. Indeed, he minded but two things 
in the whole world, and those were his Bible and his 
grouse ; for he was as good an old Scotchman as ever 
knit stockings on a winter’s night : only, when all the 
birds were going, he toddled out and took off his cap 


Water-Babies 


1 68 

to them, and wished them a merry journey and a safe 
return; and then gathered up all the feathers which 
they had left, and cleaned them to sell and make 
feather-beds for stuffy people to lie on. 

Then the petrels asked this bird and that whether 
they would take Tom to Shiny Wall : but one set 
was going to the Shetlands, and one to Norway, and 
one to Spitzbergen, and one to Iceland, and one to 
Greenland; but none would go to Shiny Wall. So 
the good-natured petrels said that they would show 
him part of the way themselves, but they were only 
going as far as Jan Mayen’s land; and after that he 
must shift for himself. 

Then all the birds rose up and streamed away in 
long black lines, north, and northeast, and northwest, 
across the bright blue summer sky; and their cry 
was like ten thousand packs of hounds, and ten thou- 
sand peals of bells. Only the puffins stayed behind, 
and killed the young rabbits and laid their eggs in 
the rabbit-burrows. 

As Tom and the petrels went northeastward it 
began to blow right hard; for the old gentleman 
who looks after the big copper boiler in the Gulf of 
Mexico had got behindhand with his work. So 
Mother Carey had sent an electric message to him 


Water-Babies 


169 


for more steam; and now the steam was coming, as 
much in an hour as ought to have come in a week, 
puffing and roaring and swishing and swirling, till 
you could not see where the sky ended and the sea 
began. But Tom and the petrels never cared, for the 
gale was right abaft, and away they went over the 
crests of the billows as merry as so many flying-fish. 

At last they saw an ugly sight — the black side 
of a great ship, water-logged in the trough of the sea. 
Her funnel and her masts were overboard, and swayed 
and surged under her lee ; her decks were swept as 
clean as a barn floor, and there was no living soul on 
board. 

The petrels flew up to her and wailed round her; 
for they were very sorry indeed, and also they ex- 
pected to find some salt pork ; and Tom scrambled on 
board of her and looked round, frightened and sad. 

And there, in a little cot lashed tight under the 
bulwark, lay a baby fast asleep ; the very same baby 
Tom had seen in the singing lady’s arms. 

He went up to it and wanted to wake it; but 
behold, from under the cot out jumped a little black 
and tan terrier dog, and began barking and snapping 
at Tom and would not let him touch the cot. 

Tom knew the dog’s teeth could not hurt him ; but 


170 


Water-Babies 


at least it could shove him away, and did; and as 
they were struggling there came a tall green sea, and 
walked in over the weather side of the ship and swept 
them all into the waves. 

“Oh, the baby, the baby!’’ screamed Tom; but 
the next moment he did not scream at all, for he saw 
the cot settling down through the green water, with 
the baby smiling in it fast asleep; and he saw the 
fairies come up from below and carry baby and 
cradle gently down in their soft arms ; and then 
he knew it was all right, and that there would be a 
new water-baby in St. Brandan’s Isle. 

And the little dog? 

Why, after he had kicked and coughed a little, he 
sneezed so hard that he sneezed himself clean out of 
his skin, and turned into a water-dog, and jumped 
and danced round Tom, and ran over the crests of the 
waves, and snapped at the jelly-fish and the mackerel, 
and followed Tom the whole way to the Other-end-of- 
Nowhere. 

Tom and the petrels went on till they began to see 
the peak of Jan Mayen’s Land, standing up like a 
white sugar-loaf, two miles above the clouds. 

And there they fell in with a whole flock of molly- 
mocks who were feeding on a dead whale. 



On the deck of the nvrecked ship 







Water-Babies 


171 

‘‘These are the fellows to show you the way/’ 
said Mother Carey’s chickens; “we cannot help 
you farther north. We don’t like to get among the 
ice pack for fear it should nip our toes: but the 
mollys dare fly anywhere.” 

So the petrels called to the mollys : but the mollys 
were so busy and greedy, gobbling and pecking and 
spluttering and fighting over the blubber, that they 
did not take the least notice. 

“Come, come,” said the petrels, “you lazy, greedy 
lubbers, this young gentleman is going to Mother 
Carey, and if you don’t attend on him, you won’t 
earn your discharge from her, you know.” 

“Greedy we are,” says a great fat old molly, “but 
lazy we ain’t; and, as for lubbers, we’re no more 
lubbers than you. Let’s have a look at the lad.” 

And he flapped right into Tom’s face, and stared 
at him in the most impudent way (for the mollys 
are audacious fellows), and then asked him where he 
hailed from and what land he sighted last. 

When Tom told him, he seemed pleased, and said 
Tom was a plucky one to have got so far. 

“Come along, lads,” he said to the rest, “and 
give this little chap a lift over the pack for Mother 
Carey’s sake. We’ve eaten blubber enough for to- 


1/2 


Water-Babies 


day, and we^ll work out a bit of our time by helping 
the lad.’^ 

So the mollys took Tom up on their backs, and flew 
off with him, laughing and joking — and oh, how they 
did smell of train oil ! 

^^Who are you, you jolly birds?’’ asked Tom. 

^‘We are the spirits of old Greenland skippers who 
hunted whales hundreds of years agone. But, be- 
cause we were saucy and greedy, we were all turned 
into mollys to eat whale’s blubber all our days. But 
lubbers we are none, and could sail a ship now against 
any man in the North Seas. And it’s a shame of those 
black imps of petrels to call us so ; but, because they’re 
her Grace’s pets, they think they may say anything 
they like.” 

‘‘And who are you?” asked Tom of him who had 
spoken, for he saw that he was the king of all the birds. 

“My name is Hendrick Hudson, and a right good 
skipper was I ; and my name will last to the world’s 
end, in spite of all the wrong I did. For I discovered 
the Hudson River, and I named Hudson’s Bay; and 
many have come in my wake that dared not have 
shown me the way. But I was a hard man in my 
time, that’s truth, and stole the poor Indians off the 
coast of Maine, and sold them for slaves down in 


Water-Babies 


173 


Virginia ; and at last I was so cruel to my sailors, here 
in these very seas, that they set me adrift in an open 
boat, and I never was heard of more. So now I^m the 
king of all mollys, till IVe worked out my time.^’ 

Now they came to the edge of the ice pack, and 
beyond it they could see Shiny Wall looming through 
mist and snow and storm. But the pack rolled 
horribly upon the swell, and the ice giants fought and 
roared, and leaped on each other’s backs, and ground 
each other to powder, so that Tom was afraid to 
venture among them lest he should be ground to 
powder too. He was the more afraid when he saw 
lying among the ice pack the wrecks of many a gallant 
ship; some with masts and yards all standing, some 
with the seamen frozen fast on board. 

But the good mollys took Tom and his dog up, and 
flew with them safe over the pack and the roaring ice 
giants, and set them down at the foot of Shiny Wall. 

“Where is the gate?” asked Tom. 

“There is no gate,” said the mollys. 

“No gate?” cried Tom aghast. 

“None; never a crack of one, and that’s the whole 
of the secret, as better fellows, lad, than you have 
found to their cost; and if there had been they’d 
have killed by now every whale that swims the sea.” 


174 


Water-Babies 


“What am I to do, then?’' 

“Dive under the floe, to be sure, if you have pluck.” 

“I’ve not come so far to turn back now,” said Tom ; 
“so here goes for a header.” 

“A lucky voyage to you, lad,” said the mollys. 
“We knew you were one of the right sort. So good- 
by.” 

“Why don’t you come too?” asked Tom. 

But the mollys only wailed sadly, “We can’t go 
yet, we can’t go yet,” and flew away over the ice pack. 

So Tom dived under the great white gate which 
never was opened yet, and went on in black darkness 
at the bottom of the sea for seven days and seven 
nights. And yet he was not a bit frightened. Why 
should he be? He was a brave English lad, whose 
business is to go out and see all the world. 

At last he saw the light, and clear water overhead ; 
and up he came a thousand fathoms, among clouds of 
sea-moths which fluttered round his head. There 
were moths with pink heads and wings and opal 
bodies that flapped about slowly ; moths with brown 
wings that flapped about quickly; yellow shrimps 
that hopped and skipped most quickly of all; and 
jellies of all the colors in the world that neither hopped 
nor skipped, but only dawdled and yawned and would 


Water-Babies 


175 


not get out of his way. The dog snapped at them 
till his jaws were tired ; but Tom hardly minded them 
at all, he was so eager to get to the top of the water 
and see the pool where the good whales go. 

And a very large pool it was, miles and miles across, 
though the air was so clear that the ice chffs on the 
opposite side looked as if they were close at hand. All 
round it the ice cliffs rose, in walls and spires and 
battlements, and caves and bridges and galleries, in 
which the ice-fairies live and drive away the storms 
and clouds, that Mother Carey’s pool may lie calm 
from year’s end to year’s end. The sun acted police- 
man, and walked round outside every day, peeping 
just over the top of the ice wall to see that all went 
right; and now and then he played conjuring tricks, 
or had an exhibition of fireworks, to amuse the ice- 
fairies. For he would make himself into four or five 
suns at once, or paint the sky with rings and crosses 
and crescents of white fire, and stick himself in the 
middle of them and wink at the fairies; and I dare 
say they were very much amused. 

There the good whales lay, the happy sleepy beasts, 
on the still oily sea. They were all right whales, you 
must know, and razor-backs, and bottle-noses, and 
spotted sea-unicoms with long ivory horns. But the 


176 


Water-Babies 


sperm whales are such raging, ramping, roaring, rum- 
bustious fellows, that, if Mother Carey let them in, 
there would be no more peace in Peacepool. So she 
packs them away in a great pond by themselves at 
the South Pole; and there they butt each other with 
their ugly noses day and night from year’s end to 
year’s end. 

But here there were only good quiet beasts, lying 
about and blowing every now and then jets of white 
spray, or sculhng round with their huge mouths open 
for the sea-moths to swim down their throats. There 
were no sword-fish to stab their stomachs, nor sharks 
to bite lumps out of their sides, nor whalers to harpoon 
and lance them. They were quite safe and happy 
there; and all they had to do was to wait quietly in 
Peacepool, till Mother Carey sent for them to make 
them out of old beasts into new. 

Tom swam up to the nearest whale and asked the 
way to Mother Carey. 

‘‘There she sits in the middle,” said the whale. 

Tom looked ; but he could see nothing in the middle 
of the pool but one peaked iceberg, and he said so. 

“That’s Mother Carey,” said the whale, “as you 
will find when you get to her. There she sits making 
old beasts into new all the year round.” 


Water-Babies 


177 


‘‘How does she do that?’' 

“That’s her concern, not mine,” said the old whale, 
and yawned so wide (for he was very large) that there 
swam into his mouth 943 sea-moths, 13,846 jelly-fish 
no bigger than pins’ heads, and forty-three little ice- 
crabs, who gave each other a parting pinch aU round, 
tucked their legs under their stomachs, and determined 
to die decently. 

“I suppose,” said Tom, “she cuts up a great whale 
Hke you into a whole shoal of porpoises?” 

At which the old whale laughed so violently that 
he coughed up all the creatures, who swam away 
very thankful at having escaped out of that terrible 
whalebone net of his; and Tom went to the iceberg, 
wondering. 

When he came near it, it took the form of the grand- 
est old lady he had ever seen — a white marble lady, 
sitting on a white marble throne. And from the foot 
of the throne there swam away, out into the sea, 
millions of new-born creatures of more shapes and 
colors than man ever dreamed. They were Mother 
Carey’s children, whom she makes out of the sea-water 
all day long. 

He expected, of course — like some grown people 
who ought to know better — to find her snipping, 


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Water-Babies 


piecing, fitting, stitching, cobbling, basting, hammering, 
polishing, moulding, measuring, clipping, and so forth, 
as men do when they go to work to make anything. 

But, instead of that, she sat quite still with her chin 
on her hand, looking down into the sea with two great 
grand blue eyes as blue as the sea itself. Her hair was 
as white as the snow — for she was very very old — in 
fact, as old as anything which you are likely to come 
across, except the difference between right and wrong. 

When she saw Tom, she looked at him very kindly. 

‘‘What do you want, my little man? It is long 
since I have seen a water-baby here.’’ 

Tom told her his errand and asked the way to the 
Other-end-of-No where. 

“You ought to know yourself, for you have been 
there already.” 

“Have I, ma’am? I’m sure I forget all about it.” 

“Then look at me.” 

And, as Tom looked into her great blue eyes, he 
recollected the way perfectly. 

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Tom. “Then I won’t 
trouble your ladyship any more.” 

“And now, my pretty little man,” said Mother 
Carey, “you are sure you know the way to the Other- 
end-of-Nowhere ? ” 


Water-Babies 


179 

Tom thought; and behold, he had forgotten it 
utterly. 

‘‘That is because you took your eyes off me.’’ 

Tom looked at her again and recollected ; and then 
looked away and forgot in an instant. 

“But what am I to do, ma’am? For I can’t keep 
looking at you when I am somewhere else.” 

“You must do without me, as most people have to 
do for nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths of 
their lives ; and look at the dog instead ; for he knows 
the way well enough and will not forget it. Besides, 
you may meet some very queer-tempered people there 
who will not let you pass without this passport of 
mine, which you must hang round your neck and take 
care of ; and, of course, as the dog will always go be- 
hind you, you must go the whole way backward.” 

“Backward!” cried Tom. “Then I shall not be 
able to see my way.” 

“On the contrary, if you look forward, you will 
not see a step before you and be certain to go 
wrong; but, if you look behind you and watch 
carefully whatever you have passed, and especially 
keep your eyes on the dog, then you will know 
what is coming next as plainly as if you saw it in a 
looking-glass.” 


i8o Water-Babies 

Tom was very much astonished; but he obeyed her, 
for he had learned always to believe what the fairies 
told him. 

“My dear child, said Mother Carey, “I will tell 
you a story which will show you that I am perfectly 
right. 

“Once on a time, there were two brothers. One 
was called Prometheus, because he always looked 
before him and boasted that he was wise beforehand. 
The other was called Epimetheus, because he always 
looked behind him and did not boast at all ; but said 
humbly, like the Irishman, that he had sooner prophesy 
after the event. 

“Well, Prometheus was a very clever fellow, of 
course, and invented all sorts of wonderful things. 
But, unfortunately, when they were set to work, to 
work was just what they would not do : wherefore very 
little has come of them, and very little is left of them. 

“But Epimetheus was a very slow fellow, and went 
among men for a clod, and a muff, and a milksop, 
and a slowcoach, and so forth. Very little he did for 
many years : but what he did he never had to do over 
again. 

“And what happened at last? There came to the 
two brothers the most beautiful creature that ever 


Water-Babies 


i8i 


was seen, Pandora by name; which means, All the 
gifts of the Gods. But, because she had a strange box 
in her hand, this fanciful, suspicious, prophesying 
Prometheus, who was always settling what was going 
to happen, would have nothing to do with pretty Pan- 
dora and her box. 

^^But Epimetheus took her and it, as he took every- 
thing that came, and married her. And they opened 
the box between them, to see what was inside; for, 
else, of what possible use could it have been to them? 

‘‘And out flew all the ills which flesh is heir to; all 
the children of the four great bogies. Self-will, Igno- 
rance, Fear, and Dirt — for instance : 

Measles Famines 

Scarlatina, Quacks, 

Idols, Unpaid bills, 

Whooping cough. Despots, 

Wars, Demagogues, 

And, worst of all, Naughty Boys and Girls. 

But one thing remained at the bottom of the box, and 
that was Hope. 

“So Epimetheus got a great deal of trouble, but he 
got the three best things in the world into the bargain 
— a good wife, and experience, and hope: while 
Prometheus had just as much trouble, and a great deal 


Water-Babies 


182 

more of his own making; with nothing besides save 
fancies spun out of his own brain, as a spider spins her 
web out of her stomach. 

“Prometheus kept on looking before him so far 
ahead, that, as he was running about with a box of 
matches (which were the only useful things he ever 
invented, and do as much harm as good), he trod on 
his own nose and tumbled down, whereby he set the 
Thames on fire. So he had to be chained to the top 
of a mountain, with a vulture by him to give him a peck 
whenever he stirred, lest he should turn the whole 
world upside down with his prophecies and his theories. 

“But stupid old Epimetheus went working and 
grubbing on, with the help of his wife Pandora, always 
looking behind him to see what had happened, till he 
really learned to know now and then what would happen 
next ; and understood so well which side his bread was 
buttered, and which way the cat jumped, that he began 
to make things which would work, and go on working, 
too ; to till and drain the ground, and to make looms, 
and ships, and railroads, and steam ploughs, and 
electric telegraphs; and to foretell famine, and bad 
weather, and the price of stocks ; till at last he grew 
rich and fat; and people thought twice before they 
meddled with him, but only once before they asked 


Water-Babies 183 

him to help them; for, because he earned his money 
well, he could afford to spend it well likewise. 

‘‘His children are the men of science, who get good 
lasting work done in the world; but the children of 
Prometheus are the fanatics, and the bigots, and the 
noisy windy people, who go telling silly folk what will 
happen, instead of looking to see what has happened 
already.’’ 

Tom was very sorely tried ; for though, by keeping 
the dog to heels (or rather to toes, for he had to walk 
backward), he could see pretty well which way the 
dog was hunting, yet it was much slower work to go 
backward than to go forward. But, what was more try- 
ing still, no sooner had he got out of Peacepool than 
there came running to him all the conjurors, fortune- 
tellers, and astrologers, as many as were in those parts, 
bawling and screaming at him, “Look a-head, only 
look a-head ; and we will show you what man never 
saw before, and right away to the end of the world ! ” 

But I am proud to say that Tom never turned his 
head round once all the way from Peacepool to the 
Other-end-of-Nowhere : but kept his eye on the dog, 
and let hi m pick out the scent, hot or cold, straight or 
crooked, wet or dry, up hill or down dale; by which 
means he never made a single mistake. 



VIII 


A s soon as Tom had left Peacepool, he came to the 
white lap of the great sea-mother, ten thousand 
fathoms deep ; where she makes world-dough all day 
long, for the steam-giants to knead, and the fire-giants 
to bake, till it has risen and hardened into mountain- 

184 


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I8S 

loaves and island-cakes. There Tom was very near 
being kneaded up in the world-dough and turned 
into a fossil water-baby; which would have aston- 
ished the geologists some hundreds of thousands of 
years hence. 

For, as he walked along in the silence of the sea- 
twilight on the soft white ocean floor, he was aware 
of a hissing, and a roaring, and a thumping, and a 
pumping, as of all the steam-engines in the world at 
once. And, when he came near, the water grew boil- 
ing-hot; not that that hurt him in the least, but it 
grew as foul as gruel, and every moment he stumbled 
over dead shells, and fish, and sharks, and seals, and 
whales, which had been killed by the hot water. 

At last he came to a great sea-serpent, lying dead 
at the bottom ; and, as he was too thick to scramble 
over, Tom had to walk round him three-quarters of a 
mile and more, which put him out of his path sadly ; 
and, when he got round, he came to the place called 
Stop. And there he stopped just in time. 

For he was on the edge of a vast hole in the bottom 
of the sea, up which was rushing and roaring clear 
steam enough to work all the engines in the world at 
once; so clear, indeed, that it was quite light at mo- 
ments; and Tom could see almost up to the top of 


Water-Babies 


1 86 

the water above, and down below into the pit for no- 
body knows how far. 

But, as soon as he bent his head over the edge, 
he got such a rap on the nose from pebbles that he 
jumped back; for the steam, as it rushed up, rasped 
away the sides of the hole, and hurled up into the 
sea a shower of mud and gravel and ashes which 
spread all around, and sank and covered in the dead 
fish so fast that, before Tom had stood there five min- 
utes, he was buried in silt up to his ankles, and began 
to be afraid that he should be buried alive. 

Perhaps he would have been, but, while he was think- 
ing, the whole piece of ground on which he stood was 
tom off and blown upward, and away flew Tom a 
mile up through the sea, wondering what was coming 
next. 

At last he stopped — thump ! and found himself 
tight in the legs of the most wonderful bogy which 
he had ever seen. 

It had I don^t know how many wings, as big as the 
sails of a windmill, and spread out in a ring like them ; 
and with them it hovered over the steam which rushed 
up. And for every wing above, it had a leg below, with 
a claw like a comb at the tip, and a nostril at the root ; 
and in the middle it had no stomach and one eye; 


Water-Babies 187 

and as for its mouth, that was all on one side. It was 
a very strange beast*, but no stranger than some 
dozens which you may see. 

^‘What do you want here,” it cried quite peevishly, 
‘‘getting in my way?” and it tried to drop Tom; 
but he held on tight to its claws, thinking himself safer 
where he was. 

So Tom told him who he was, and what his errand 
was. And the thing winked its one eye, and sneered : 
“I am too old to be taken in in that way. You are 
come after gold — I know you are.” 

“Gold! What is gold?” And really Tom did not 
know; but the suspicious old bogy would not believe 
him. 

But after a while Tom began to understand a little. 
For, as the vapors came up out of the hole, the bogy 
smelt them with his nostrils, and combed them and 
sorted them with his combs; and then, when they 
steamed up against his wings, they were changed into 
showers and streams of metal. From one wing fell 
gold, and from another silver, and from another copper, 
and from another tin, and from another lead, and so 
on, and sank into the soft mud, and hardened there. 
Whereby it comes to pass that the rocks are full of 
metal. 


Water-Babies 


1 88 

But, all of a sudden, somebody shut off the steam 
below, and the hole was left empty in an instant; and 
then down rushed the water into the hole, in such a 
whirlpool that the bogy spun round and round as fast 
as a teetotum. But that was all in his day’s work, 
so all he did was to say to Tom, ‘‘Now is your 
time, youngster, to get down, if you are in earnest, 
which I don’t believe.” 

“You’ll soon see,” said Tom, and away he went, 
and shot down the rushing cataract. 

When he got to the bottom, he swam till he was 
washed on shore safe upon the Other-end-of-No where, 
and he found it, to his surprise, much more like This- 
End-of-Somewhere than he had been in the habit of 
expecting. 

First he went through Waste-paper-land, where all 
the stupid books lie in heaps, like leaves in a winter 
wood ; and there he saw people digging and grubbing 
among them. 

Then he went by the sea of slops to the mountain 
of messes, and the territory of sweetmeats, where the 
ground was very sticky, for it was all made of bad 
molasses candy, and full of deep cracks and holes 
choked with windfallen fruit, and green gooseberries, 
and sloes, and crab-apples, and whinberries, and hips 


Water-Babies 


189 


and haws, and all the disagreeable things which little 
children will eat, if they can get them. But the 
fairies hide them out of the way in that country as 
fast as they can, and very hard work they have, and 
of very little use it is. For, as fast as they hide away 
the old trash, foolish and wicked people make fresh 
trash full of poisonous paints. 

Next he saw all the little people in the world, writ- 
ing all the little books in the world, about all the other 
little people in the world. And all the rest of the little 
people in the world read the books. But Tom thought 
he would sooner have a jolly good fairy tale, about 
Jack the Giant-killer or Beauty and the Beast, which 
taught him something that he didnT know already. 

Next he came to the centre of Creation. And there 
he found all the wise people instructing mankind in 
the science of spirit-rapping, while their house was 
burning over their heads : and, when Tom told them 
of the fire, they held an indignation meeting forthwith, 
and unanimously determined to hang Tom’s dog for 
coming into their country with gunpowder in his 
mouth. Tom couldn’t help saying that he would 
have called for the fire-engines before he hanged other 
people’s dogs. But it was of no use, and the dog was 
hanged. They failed in one little particular, viz. 


Water-Babies 


190 

that the dog would not die, being a water-dog, but 
bit their fingers so abominably that they were forced 
to let him go, and Tom likewise. 

Then came Tom to the Island of Polupragmosyne 
(which some call Rogues^ Harbor). There every one 
knows his neighbor’s business better than his own, 
and a very noisy place it is, considering that the in- 
habitants are always making wry mouths and crying 
that the fairies’ grapes were sour. 

There Tom saw ploughs drawing horses, nails driv- 
ing hammers, birds’ nests taking boys, monkeys shav- 
ing cats ; and, in short, every one set to do something 
which he had not learned, because in what he had 
learned, or pretended to learn, he had failed. 

When he got into the middle of the town, they all 
set on him at once to show him his way ; or rather, to 
show him that he did not know his way ; for, as for 
asking him what way he wanted to go, no one ever 
thought of that. 

But one pulled him hither, and another poked him 
thither, and a third cried, ‘‘You mustn’t go west, I 
tell you ; it is destruction to go west.” 

“ But I am not going west, as you may see,” said Tom. 

And another, “The east lies here, my dear; I as- 
sure you this is the east.” 


Water-Babies 


191 

‘‘But I don’t want to go east,” said Tom. 

“Well then, at all events, whichever way you are 
going, you are going wrong,” cried they all with one 
voice — which was the only thing they ever agreed 
about; and all pointed at once to all the thirty- 
and-two points of the compass, till Tom thought all 
the sign-posts in England had gotten together and fallen 
to fighting. 

Whether he would have ever escaped out of the town, 
it is hard to say, if the dog had not taken it into his 
head that they were going to pull his master in pieces, 
and tackled them so sharply that he gave them some 
business of their own to think of at last; and while 
they were rubbing their bitten calves, Tom and the 
dog got safely away. 

On the borders of that island he found Gotham, 
where the wise men live; the same who dragged the 
pond because the moon had fallen into it, and planted 
a hedge round the cuckoo to keep spring all the year. 
And he found them bricking up the town gate, because 
it was so wide that little folks could not get through. 
So he went on; for it was no business of his; only 
he could not help saying that in his country, if the 
kitten could not get in at the same hole as the cat, 
she might stay outside and mew. 


192 


Water-Babies 


But he saw the end of such fellows when he came 
to the island of the Golden Donkeys, where nothing 
but thistles grow. There the people were all turned 
into donkeys with ears a yard long for meddling with 
matters which they do not understand. And donkeys 
they must remain till the thistles develop into roses. 
Till then, they must comfort themselves with the 
thought that the longer their ears are, the thicker 
their hides ; and so a good beating doesn^t hurt them. 

Then came Tom to the great land of Hearsay, in 
which are no less than thirty kings, besides half a 
dozen Republics. 

There he fell in with a deep, dark, deadly, and de- 
structive war, waged by the princes and potentates 
of those parts. All their strategy and art military 
consisted in the safe and easy process of stopping 
their ears and screaming, ‘‘Oh, donT tell us!’^ and 
then running away. 

So when Tom came into that land, he found them 
all, high and low, man, woman, and child, running for 
their lives day and night continually, and entreating 
not to be told they didn’t know what; only the land 
being an island and they having a dislike of the water, 
they ran round and round the shore for ever, which 
was hard work, especially to those who had business 


Water-Babies 


193 


to look after. But before them, as bandmaster and 
leader, ran a gentleman shearing a pig ; the melodious 
strains of which animal led them, if not to conquest, 
still to flight ; and kept up their spirits mightily with 
the thought that they would at least have the pig's 
wool for their pains. 

And running after them, day and night, came such 
a poor, lean, seedy, hardworked old giant, as ought to 
have been cockered up, and had a good dinner given 
him, and a good wife found him, and been set to play 
with little children; and then he would have been a 
very presentable old fellow after all ; for he had a heart, 
though it was considerably overgrown with brains. 

He was made up principally of fish bones and parch- 
ment, put together with wire and balsam ; and smelt 
strongly of spirits, though he never drank anything 
but water. He had a great pair of spectacles on his 
nose, and a butterfly-net in one hand, and a geological 
hammer in the other; and was hung all over with 
pockets full of collecting boxes, bottles, microscopes, 
telescopes, barometers, forceps, photographic appara- 
tus, and all other tackle for finding out everything about 
everything, and a little more too. And, most strange 
of all, he was running, not forwards but backwards, 
as fast as he could. 

Q 


194 


Water-Babies 


Away all the good folks ran from him, except Tom, 
who stood his ground and dodged between his legs; 
and the giant, when he had passed him, looked down 
and cried, as if he was quite pleased and comforted, — 

^‘What? Who are you? And you actually donT 
run away like all the rest?’^ But he had to take his 
spectacles off, Tom noticed, in order to see him plainly. 

Tom told him who he was; and the giant pulled 
out a bottle and a cork instantly, to collect him with. 

But Tom was too sharp for that, and dodged be- 
tween his legs and in front of him ; and then the giant 
could not see him at all. 

‘‘No, no, no!’^ said Tom, “IVe not been round the 
world, and through the world, and up to Mother 
Carey’s haven, besides being caught in a net and 
called a Holothurian and a Cephalopod, to be bottled 
up by any old giant like you.” 

When the giant understood what a great traveller 
Tom had been, he made a truce with him at once, and 
would have kept him there to this day, so delighted 
was he at finding any one to tell him what he did not 
know before. 

“Ah, you lucky little dog!” said he at last, for he 
was the pleasantest, honestest, kindliest old giant 
that ever turned the world upside down without 


Water-Babies 


I9S 

intending it — “Ah, you lucky little dog! If I had 
only been where you have been, to see what you have 
seen ! ’’ 

“Well,’’ said Tom, “if you want to do that, you had 
best put your head under water for a few hours, as I 
did, and turn into a water-baby, and then you might 
have a chance.” 

“Turn into a baby, eh? If I could do that, and 
know what was happening to me for but one hour, 
I should know everything then and be at rest. But 
I can’t ; I can’t be a little child again ; and I suppose 
if I could it would be no use, because then I should 
know nothing about what was happening to me. Ah, 
you lucky little dog ! ” said the poor old giant. 

“But why do you run after all these poor people?” 
said Tom, who liked the giant very much. 

“My dear, it’s they that have been running after 
me, father and son, for hundreds and hundreds of 
years, throwing stones at me till they have knocked 
off my spectacles fifty times, and calhng me a tur- 
baned Turk, who beat a Venetian and traduced the 
state — goodness only knows what they mean, — 
and hunting me round and round — though catch 
me they can’t, for every time I go over the same ground 
I go the faster and grow the bigger. All I want is 


196 


Water-Babies 


to be friends with them, and to tell them something 
to their advantage, only somehow they are strangely 
afraid of hearing it. But I suppose I am not a man of 
the world, and have no tact.’^ 

‘‘ Why don’t you turn round and tell them so ? ” 

‘‘Because I can’t. You see, I am one of the sons 
of Epimetheus, and must go backwards, if I am to go 
at all.” 

“But why don’t you stop and let them come up 
to you?” 

“Why, my dear, only think. If I did, all the butter- 
flies and cocky olybirds would fly past me, and then 
I should catch no more new species, and should grow 
rusty and moldy, and die. And I don’t intend to do 
that, my dear; for I have a destiny before me, they 
say, though what it is I don’t know, and don’t care.” 

“Don’t care?” said Tom. 

“No. Do the duty which lies nearest you, and 
catch the first beetle you come across, is my motto; 
and I have thriven by it for some hundred years. 
Now I must go on. Dear me, while I have been 
talking to you at least nine new species have escaped 
me. 

And on went the giant, behind before, till he ran 
into the steeple of the great idol temple (for they are 


Water-Babies 


197 


all idolaters in those parts), and knocked the upper 
half clean off, hurting himself horribly about the small 
of the back. 

But little he cared; for as soon as the ruins of the 
steeple were well between his legs, he poked and 
peered among the falling stones, and shifted his spec- 
tacles, and pulled out his pocket-magnifier, and cried: 
‘‘An entirely new Oniscus, and three obscure Podu- 
rellae ! This is most important ! 

And down he sat on the nave of the temple to ex- 
amine his Podurellae. Whereon the roof caved in, 
smashing the idols, and sending the priests flying out 
of doors and windows like rabbits out of a burrow 
when a ferret goes in. 

But he never heeded; for out of the dust flew a 
bat, and the giant had him in a moment. 

“Dear me! This is even more important! Here 
is a cognate species to that which Macgilliwaukie 
Brown insists is confined to the Buddhist Temples of 
Little Thibet.'' 

And having bagged his bat, up he got, and on he 
went; while all the people ran, being in none the 
better humor for having their temple smashed for 
the sake of three obscure species of Podurella, and a 
Buddhist bat. 


198 


Water-Babies 


“Well/’ thought Tom, “this is a very pretty quarrel, 
with a good deal to be said on both sides. But it is 
no business of mine.” 

The giant ran round after the p'eople, and the people 
ran round after the giant, and they are running unto 
this day for aught I know ; and will run till either he, 
or they, or both, turn into little children. Then, as 
Shakspeare says — 

Jack shall have Jill 

Nought shall go ill 

The man shall have his mare again, and all go well.” 

Then Tom came to a very famous island, which 
was called, in the days of the great traveller Captain 
Gulliver, the Isle of Laputa. But Mrs. Bedonebyas- 
youdid has named it over, the Isle of Tomtoddies, all 
heads and no bodies. 

When Tom came near it, he heard a grumbling and 
grunting and growling and wailing and weeping and 
whining. When he came nearer, he began to hear 
words among the noise. It was the Tomtoddies’ song 
which they sing morning and evening, and all night 
too, to their great idol Examination — 

“ I can’t learn my lesson : the examiner’s coming ! ” 

And that was the only song they knew. 


Water-Babies 


199 


When Tom got on shore the first thing he saw was 
a great pillar, on one side of which was inscribed, 
‘^Playthings not allowed here;” at which he was so 
shocked that he would not stay to see what was written 
on the other side. Then he looked round for the people 
of the island; but instead of men, women, and chil- 
dren, he found nothing but turnips and radishes and 
beets, without a single green leaf among them, and 
half of them burst and decayed, with toad-stools grow- 
ing out of them. Those which were left began crying 
to Tom in half a dozen different languages at once, 
and all of them badly spoken, “I can’t learn my lesson ; 
do come and help me!” 

And one cried, “ Can you show me how to extract 
this square-root?” 

And another, “What is the latitude and longitude 
of Snooksville, in Noman’s County, Oregon, U.S.?” 

And another, “What was the name of Mu tins Scae- 
vola’s thirteenth cousin’s grandmother’s maid’s cat?” 

And another, “How long would it take a school- 
inspector of average activity to tumble head over heels 
from London to York?” 

And another, “ Can you tell me the name of a place 
that nobody ever heard of, where nothing ever hap- 
pened, in a country which has not been discovered yet ? ” 


200 


Water-Babies 


And another, ‘‘Can you show me the cause why 
crocodiles have no tongues?’^ 

And so on, and so on, and so on. 

“What good on earth would it do you if I did tell 
you?” quoth Tom. 

Well, they didn't know that; all they knew was 
the examiner was coming. 

Then Tom stumbled on the hugest and softest 
nimblecomequick turnip you ever saw, and it cried 
to him, “ Can you tell me anything at all about any- 
thing you like?” 

“About what?” says Tom. 

“About anything you like; for as fast as I learn 
things I forget them. So my mamma says that my 
intellect is not adapted for methodic science, and says 
that I must go in for general information.” 

Tom told him that he did not know general in- 
formation, nor any officers in the army ; only he had 
a friend once that went for a drummer : but he could 
tell him a great many strange things which he had 
seen in his travels. 

So he told him, while the poor turnip listened very 
carefully; and the more he listened, the more he 
forgot, and the more water ran out of him. 

Tom thought he was crying, but it was only his 


Water-Babies 


201 


poor brains running away from being worked so hard ; 
and, as Tom talked, the unhappy turnip streamed down 
all over with juice, and split and shrank till nothing 
was left of him but rind and water; whereat Tom 
ran away in a fright, for he thought he might be taken 
up for killing the turnip. 

But, on the contrary, the turnip’s parents were 
highly delighted, and considered him a saint and a 
martyr, and put up a long inscription over his tomb 
about his wonderful talents, early development, and 
unparalleled precocity. 

Tom was so puzzled and frightened with all he saw 
that he was longing to ask the meaning of it; and at 
last he stumbled over a respectable old stick lying 
half covered with earth. But a very stout and worthy 
stick it was. 

‘‘You see,” said the stick, “they were as pretty 
little children once as you could wish to see, and 
might have been so still if only they had been left 
to grow up like human beings, and then handed over 
to me; but their foolish fathers and mothers, instead 
of letting them pick flowers, and make dirt pies, and 
dance round the gooseberry bush, as little children 
should, kept them always at lessons, working, working, 
working, learning weekday lessons all weekdays, and 


202 


Water-Babies 


Sunday lessons all Sunday, and weekly examinations 
every Saturday, and monthly examinations every 
month, and yearly examinations every year, every- 
thing seven times over, as if once was not enough, and 
enough as good as a feast — till their brains grew big, 
and their bodies grew small, and they were all changed 
into turnips with little but water inside; and still 
their fooHsh parents actually pick the leaves off them, 
as fast as they grow, lest they should have anything 
green about them/’ 

‘^Ah!” said Tom, ‘‘if dear Mrs. Doasyouwould- 
bedoneby knew of it she would send them a lot of tops, 
and balls, and marbles, and ninepins, and make them 
all jolly.” 

“It would be no use,” said the stick. “They can’t 
play now if they tried. Don’t you see how their legs 
have turned to roots and grown into the ground, by 
never taking any exercise, but moping always in the 
same place? But here comes the Examiner-of-all- 
Examiners. So you had better get away, I warn 
you, or he will examine you, and your dog into the 
bargain, and set him to examine all the other dogs, 
and you to examine all the other water-babies. There 
is no escaping out of his hands, for he can go down 
chimneys and through keyholes, upstairs, downstairs. 


Water-Babies 


203 


in my lady’s chamber, examining all little boys, and 
the little boys’ tutors hkewise. But when he is thrashed 
— so Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid has promised me — I 
shall have the thrashing of him ; and if I don’t lay on 
with a will it’s a pity.” 

Tom went off, but rather slowly and surlily, for 
he was somewhat minded to face this same Exam- 
iner-of-all-Examiners, who came striding among 
the poor turnips, binding heavy burdens and griev- 
ous to be borne, and laying them on httle children’s 
shoulders, and not touching the same with one of 
his fingers; for he had plenty of money, and a fine 
house to live in ; which was more than the poor little 
turnips had. 

But when he got near, he looked so big and burly 
and dictatorial, and shouted so loud to Tom to come 
and be examined, that Tom ran for his life, and the 
dog too. And really it was time ; for the poor turnips, 
in their hurry and fright, crammed themselves so fast 
to be ready for the Examiner, that they burst and 
popped by dozens all round him, and Tom thought 
he should be blown into the air, dog and all. 

He went down to the shore, jumped into the sea, 
and swam on his way. Next he came to Oldwives- 
fabledom, where the folks were all heathen. And there 


204 


Water-Babies 


he found a little boy sitting in the middle of the road, 
and crying bitterly. 

‘‘What are you crying for?^’ said Tom. 

“Because I am not frightened as I wish to be.’’ 

“Not frightened? You are a queer little chap: 
but, if you want to be frightened, here goes — Boo !” 

“ Ah !” said the little boy, “that is very kind of you ; 
but I don’t feel that it has made any impression.” 

Tom offered to upset him, punch him, stamp on 
him, hit him over the head with a brick, or anything 
else whatsoever which would give him the slightest 
comfort. 

But he only thanked Tom very civilly, in fine long 
words which he had heard other folk use, and which, 
therefore, he thought were fit and proper to use him- 
self ; and cried till his papa and mamma came, and 
sent off for the Powwow man immediately. And a 
very good-natured gentleman and lady they were, 
though they were heathen ; and talked quite pleasantly 
to Tom about his travels, till the Powwow man arrived 
with his thunderbox under his arm. 

A well-fed, ill-favored gentleman he was. Tom 
was a little frightened at first, for he thought it was 
Grimes. But he soon saw his mistake, for Grimes 
always looked a man in the face, and this fellow never 


Water-Babies 


205 


did. When he spoke, it was fire and smoke; and 
when he sneezed, it was squibs and crackers; and 
when he cried, it was boiling pitch; and some of it 
was sure to stick. 

‘‘Here we are again cried he. “So you can’t 
feel frightened, my little dear — eh? I’ll make an 
impression on you! Yah! Boo! Whirroo! Hulla- 
baloo ! ” 

And he rattled, thumped, brandished his thunder- 
box, yelled, shouted, raved, roared, stamped, and 
danced ; and then he touched a spring in the thunder- 
box, and out popped turnip-ghosts and pasteboard 
bogies and spring-heeled Jacks, with such a horrid 
din, clatter, rattle, and roar, that the little boy turned 
up the whites of his eyes and fainted right away. 

At that his poor heathen papa and mamma were 
as much delighted as if they had found a gold mine; 
and fell down on their knees before the Powwow 
man, and gave him a palanquin with a pole of solid 
silver and curtains of cloth of gold, and carried him 
about in it on their own backs; but as soon as they 
had taken him up, the pole stuck to their shoulders, 
and they could not set him down any more, but carried 
him on, willy-nilly, which was a pitiable sight to see ; 
for the father was a very brave officer and wore two 


2o6 


Water-Babies 


swords, and the mother was as pretty a lady as ever 
had pinched feet like a Chinese. But you see they 
had chosen to do a foolish thing just once too often; 
so, by the laws of Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, they had 
to go on doing it whether they chose or not. 

“Now then,’’ said the Powwow man to Tom, 
“wouldn’t you like to be frightened, my little dear? 
For I can see plainly that you are a very wicked, grace- 
less boy.” 

“You’re another,” quoth Tom, very sturdily. And 
when the man ran at him, and cried “Boo!” Tom 
ran at him in return, and cried “Boo !” likewise, right 
in his face, and set the little dog upon him; and at 
his legs the dog went. 

At which, if you will believe it, the fellow turned 
tail, thunderbox and all, with a “Woof!” and ran 
for his life, screaming, “Help! thieves! murder! fire! 
He is going to kill me ! I am a ruined man ! He will 
murder me and destroy my precious thunderbox, 
and then you will have no more thunder-showers in 
the land. Help ! help ! help !” 

At which the papa and mamma and all the people 
of Oldwivesfabledom flew at Tom, shouting, “Oh, 
the wicked, impudent, hard-hearted boy ! Beat him, 
kick him, shoot him, drown him, hang him, burn him !” 


Water-Babies 


207 


and so forth : but luckily they had nothing to shoot, 
hang, or burn him with, for the fairies had hid all the 
killing-tackle out of the way a little while before. They 
could only pelt him with stones ; and some of the stones 
went clean through him and came out the other side. 
But he did not mind that a bit; for the holes closed 
up again as fast as they were made, because he was 
a water-baby. However, he was very glad when he 
was safe out of the country, for the noise there made 
him all but deaf. 

Then he came to a very quiet place called Leave- 
heavenalone. There the sun was drawing water out 
of the sea to make steam-threads, and the wind was 
twisting them up to make cloud-patterns, till they had 
worked between them the loveliest wedding veil of 
lace, and hung it up in their palace for any one to buy 
who could afford it; while the good old sea never 
grudged, for she knew they would pay her back honestly. 
So the sun span, and the wind wove, and all went well 
with the great steam-loom. 

At last, after innumerable adventures, he saw be- 
fore him a huge building. 

Tom walked toward this building, wondering what 
it was, till he saw running toward him, and shouting 
Stop ! ” three or four people, who, when they came 


2o8 


Water-Babies 


nearer, were nothing else than policemen’s clubs, run- 
ning along without legs or arms. 

Tom was not astonished. He was long past that. 
Besides, he had seen creatures in the water move no- 
body knows how, without arms, or legs, or anything 
to stand in their stead. Neither was he frightened; 
for he had been doing no harm. 

So he stopped; and, when the foremost club came 
up and asked his business, he showed Mother Carey’s 
pass. The club looked at the pass in the oddest fashion, 
for it had one eye in the middle of its upper end, so 
that when it looked at anything, being quite stiff, it 
had to slope itself, and poke itself, till it was a wonder 
it did not tumble over. 

^‘All right — pass on,” it said at last. Then it 
added, had better go with you, young man.” 

Tom had no objection, for such company was both 
respectable and safe; so the club coiled its thong 
neatly round its handle, to prevent tripping itself up 
— for the thong had got loose in running — and 
marched on by Tom’s side. 

^'Why have you no policeman to carry you?” asked 
Tom, after a while. 

‘‘Because we are not like those clumsy-made clubs 
in the land-world, which cannot go without having 


Water-Babies 


zog 


a whole man to carry them about. We do our own 
work for ourselves, and do it very well, though I say 
it who should not. 

^‘Then why have you a thong to your handle 
asked Tom. 

‘^To hang ourselves up by, of course, when we are 
off duty.^^ 

Tom had got his answer and had no more to say, 
till they came to the great iron door of the prison. 
There the club knocked twice with its own head. 

A wicket in the door opened, and out looked a tre- 
mendous old brass blunderbuss charged up to the 
muzzle with slugs. This was the porter; and Tom 
started back a little at the sight of him. 

“What case is this?’’ he asked in a deep voice, 
out of his broad bell mouth. 

“If you please, sir, it is no case; only a young 
gentleman from her ladyship, who wants to see Grimes, 
the master-sweep.” 

“Grimes?” said the blunderbuss. And he pulled 
in his muzzle, perhaps to look over his prison-lists. 

“ Grimes is up chimney No. 345,” he said from inside. 
“So the young gentleman had better go on to the roof.” 

Tom looked up at the enormous wall, which seemed 
at least ninety miles high, and wondered how he 


210 


Water-Babies 


should ever get up; but, when he hinted that to the 
club, it settled the matter in a moment. For it whisked 
round, and gave him such a shove behind as sent him up 
to the roof in no time with his little dog under his arm. 

There he walked along, till he met another club, 
and told it his errand. 

‘‘Very good,’’ it said. “Come along, but it will 
be of no use. He is the most unremorseful, hard- 
hearted, foul-mouthed fellow I have in charge, and 
thinks about nothing but beer and pipes, which are 
not allowed here, of course.” 

So he walked along over the roof, and very sooty 
it was, and Tom thought the chimneys must want 
sweeping very much. But he was surprised to see that 
the soot did not stick to his feet, nor dirty them in the 
least. Neither did the live coals, which were lying 
about in plenty, bum him ; for he was a water-baby. 

At last they came to chimney No. 345. Out of the 
top of it, his head and shoulders just showing, stuck 
poor Mr. Grimes; so sooty, and bleared, and ugly, 
that Tom could hardly bear to look at him. And in 
his mouth was a pipe ; but it was not lighted, though 
he was pulling at it with all his might. 

“Attention, Mr. Grimes,” said the club; ‘^here is 
a gentleman come to see you.” 


Water-Babies 


2II 


But Mr. Grimes only said bad words, and kept 
grumbling, ‘‘My pipe won't draw. My pipe won't 
draw." 

“Keep a civil tongue and attend!" said the club, 
and popped up, hitting Grimes such a crack over the 
head with itself that his brains rattled inside like a 
dried walnut meat in its shell. He tried to get his 
hands out and rub the place, but he could not, for 
they were stuck fast in the chimney. Now he was 
forced to attend. 

“Hey!" he said, “why, it's Tom! I suppose you 
have come here to laugh at me, you spiteful little 
atomy?" 

Tom assured him he had not, but only wanted to 
help him. 

“I don't want anything except beer, and that I 
can't get ; and a light to this bothering pipe, and that 
I can't get either." 

“I'll get you one," said Tom, and he took up a 
live coal and put it to Grimes's pipe ; but it went out 
instantly. 

“It's no use," said the club, leaning itself against 
the chimney and looking on. “I tell you, it is no use. 
His heart is so cold that it freezes everything that comes 
near him. You will see that presently, plain enough." 


212 


Water-Babies 


''Oh, of course, it’s my fault. Everything’s always 
my fault,” said Grimes. "Now don’t go to hit me 
again” (for the club started upright, and looked very 
wicked) ; "you know, if my arms were only free, you 
daren’t hit me then.” 

The club leaned back against the chimney and took 
no notice of the insult, like a well-trained policeman 
as it was. 

"But can’t I help you in any other way? Can’t 
I help you to get out of this chimney?” said Tom. 

"No,” interposed the club; "he has come to the 
place where everybody must help themselves; and he 
will find it out, I hope, before he has done with me.” 

"Oh, yes,” said Grimes, "of course it’s me. Did 
I ask to be brought here into the prison? Did I ask 
to be set to sweep your foul chimneys? Did I ask to 
have lighted straw put under me to make me go up ? 
Did I ask to stick fast in the very first chimney of all, 
because it was so shamefully clogged up with soot? 
Did I ask to stay here — I don’t know how long — a 
hundred years, I do believe, and never get my pipe, 
nor my beer, nor nothing fit for a beast, let alone a man.” 

"No,” answered a solemn voice behind. "No 
more did Tom, when you behaved to him in the very 
same way.” 



Mr. Grimes in the chimney 




/ 



Water-Babies 


213 


It was Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. And, when the 
club saw her, it started bolt upright — and made a 
low bow. And Tom made his bow too. 

‘*Oh, ma’am,’’ he said, ‘‘don’t think about me; 
that’s all past and gone, and good times and bad times 
and all times pass over. But may not I help poor 
Mr. Grimes ? Mayn’t I try to get some of these bricks 
away, that he may move his arms?” 

“You may try, of course,” she said. 

So Tom pulled and tugged at the bricks, but he 
could not move one. Then he tried to wipe Mr. 
Grimes’s face, but the soot would not come off. 

“Oh, dear!” he said, “I have come all this way, 
through all those terrible places, to help you, and now 
I am of no use at all.” 

“You had best leave me alone,” said Grimes. “You 
are a good-natured, forgiving little chap, and that’s 
the truth; but you’d best be off. The hail’s com- 
ing on soon, and it will beat the eyes out of your 
little head.” 

“What hail?” 

“Why, hail that falls every evening here; and, 
till it comes close to me, it’s like so much warm rain : 
but then it turns to hail over my head, and knocks me 
about like small shot.” 


214 


Water-Babies 


'‘That hail will never come any more/’ said the 
strange lady. "I have told you before what it was. 
It was your mother’s tears, those which she shed when 
she prayed for you by her bedside; but your cold 
heart froze it into hail. But she is gone to heaven 
now, and will weep no more for her graceless son.” 

Then Grimes was silent awhile, and he looked very 
sad. 

"So my old mother’s gone, and I never there to 
speak to her! Ah! a good woman she was, and 
might have been a happy one in her little school there 
in Vendale, if it hadn’t been for me and my bad ways.” 

"Did she keep the school in Vendale?” asked Tom. 
And then he told Grimes all the story of his going to 
her house, and how she could not abide the sight of a 
chimney-sweep, and then how kind she was, and how 
he turned into a water-baby. 

"Ah!” said Grimes, "good reason she had to hate 
the sight of a chimney-sweep. I ran away from her 
and took up with the sweeps, and never let her know 
where I was, nor sent her a penny to help her, and now 
it’s too late — too late !” 

And he began crying and blubbering like a great 
baby, till his pipe dropped out of his mouth, and 
broke all to bits. 


Water-Babies 


215 


‘‘O dear, if I was but a little chap in Vendale again, 
to see the clear brook, and the apple-orchard, and the 
yew-hedge, how different I would go on! But it^s 
too late now. So you go along, you kind little chap, 
and don’t stand to look at a man crying, that’s old 
enough to be your father and never feared the face 
of men. But I’m beat now. I’ve made my bed, 
and I must lie on it. Foul I would be, and foul 
I am, as an Irishwoman said to me once; and 
little I heeded it. It’s all my own fault, but it’s 
too late.” And he cried so bitterly that Tom began 
crying too. 

‘‘Never too late,” said the fairy in such a strange 
soft new voice that Tom looked up at her; and she 
was so beautiful for the moment that Tom half fancied 
she was her sister. 

No more was it too late. For, as poor Grimes cried 
and blubbered on, his own tears did what his mother’s 
could not do, and Tom’s could not do, and nobody’s 
on earth could do for him ; for they washed the soot 
off his face and off his clothes ; and then they washed 
the mortar away from between the bricks ; and the 
chimney crumbled down; and Grimes began to get 
out of it. 

Up jumped the club, and was going to hit him on 


2i6 


Water-Babies 


the crown a tremendous thump, and drive him down 
again like a cork into a bottle. But the strange lady 
put it aside. 

“Will you obey me if I give you a chance?^’ she 
asked Grimes. 

“As you please, ma’am. You’re stronger than me, 
that I know too well, and wiser than me, I know too 
well also. And, as for being my own master, I’ve 
fared ill enough with that as yet. So whatever your 
ladyship pleases to order me ; for I’m beat, and that’s 
the truth.” 

“Be it so then — you may come out. But remem- 
ber, disobey me again, and into a worse place still 
you go.” 

“I beg pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you 
that I know of. I never had the honor of setting eyes 
on you till I came to these ugly quarters.” 

“Never saw me? Who said to you, ‘Those that 
will be foul, foul they will be’ ?” 

Grimes looked up ; and Tom looked up too ; for 
the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them 
the day that they went out together to Harthover. 
“I gave you your warning then. Every bad word 
that you said — every cruel and mean thing that you 
did — every time that you got tipsy — every day 


Water-Babies 


217 

that you went dirty — you were disobeying me, whether 
you knew it or not.” 

‘‘If I’d only known, ma’am — ” 

“You knew well enough that you were disobeying 
something, though you did not know it was me. But 
come out and take your chance. Perhaps it may be 
your last.” 

So Grimes stepped out of the chimney, and really, 
if it had not been for the scars on his face, he looked 
as clean and respectable as a master-sweep need look. 

“Take him away,” said she to the club, “and give 
him his ticket-of-leave.” 

“And what is he to do, ma’am?” 

“Get him to sweep out the crater of Etna; he will 
find some very steady men working out their time there, 
who will teach him his business: but mind, if that 
crater gets choked again, and there is an earthquake 
in consequence, bring them all to me, and I shall in- 
vestigate the case very severely.” 

So the club marched off Mr. Grimes, who looked 
as meek as a drowned worm. 

And for aught I know, he is sweeping the crater of 
Etna to this very day. 

“Now,” said the fairy to Tom, “your work here is 
done. You may as well go back.” 


2I8 


Water-Babies 


should be glad enough to go/’ said Tom, ‘‘but 
how am I to get up that great hole, now the steam has 
stopped blowing?” 

“ I will take you up the back stairs : but I must 
bandage your eyes first ; for I never allow anybody to 
see those back stairs of mine.” 

“I am sure I shall not tell anybody about them, 
ma’am, if you bid me not.” 

“Aha! So you think, my little man. But you 
would soon forget your promise if you got back into 
the land-world. For, if people only once found out 
that you had been up my back stairs, you would have 
all the fine ladies kneeling to you, and the rich men 
emptying their purses before you, and statesmen 
offering you place and power; and young and old, 
rich and poor, crying to you, ‘Only tell us the great 
back stairs secret and we will be your slaves ; we will 
make you lord, king, emperor, bishop, pope, if you 
like — only tell us the secret of the back stairs. For 
thousands of years we have been paying, and obeying, 
and worshipping quacks who told us they had the key 
of the back stairs, and could smuggle us up them ; 
and, in spite of all our disappointments, we will honor, 
and glorify, and adore you likewise, on the chance of 
your knowing something about the back stairs, that 


Water-Babies 


219 


we may all go on pilgrimage to it ; and, even if we can- 
not get up it, lie at the foot of it, and cry, — “0 back 
stairs, precious back stairs, etc., save us from the con- 
sequences of our own actions, and from the cruel fairy, 
Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid !’’’ Do not you think that 
you would be a little tempted then to tell what you 
know, laddie 

Tom thought so certainly. But why do they want 
so to know about the back stairs?^’ asked he. 

“That I shall not tell you. Come — now I must 
bandage your eyes.^^ 

So she tied the bandage on his eyes with one hand, 
and with the other she took it off. 

“Now,^’ she said, “you are safe up the stairs.’’ 
Tom opened his eyes very wide, and his mouth too; 
for he had not, as he thought, moved a single step. 
But, when he looked round him, there could be no 
doubt that he was safe up the back stairs, whatsoever 
they may be. 

The first thing which Tom saw was the black cedars, 
high and sharp against the rosy dawn ; and St. Bran- 
dan’s Isle reflected double in the still broad silver sea. 
The wind sang softly in the cedars, and the water sang 
among the caves ; the sea-birds sang as they streamed 
out into the ocean, and the land-birds as they built 


220 


Water-Babies 


among the boughs ; and the air was so full of song that 
it stirred St. Brandan and his hermits, as they slum- 
bered in the shade ; and they moved their good old 
lips, and sang their morning hymn amid their dreams. 
But among all the songs one came across the water 
more sweet and clear than all; for it was the song of 
a young girPs voice. 

And as Tom neared the island, there sat upon 
a rock the most graceful creature that ever was 
seen, looking down, with her chin upon her hand, 
and paddling with her feet in the water. And 
when they came to her she looked up, and behold 
it was Ellie. 

‘^Oh, Miss Ellie,” said he, “how you are grown !” 

“Oh, Tom,” said she, “how you are grown, too !” 

And no wonder ; they were both quite grown up — 
he into a tall man, and she into a beautiful woman. 

“Perhaps I may be grown,” she said. “I have 
had time enough ; for I have been sitting here waiting 
for you many a hundred years, till I thought you were 
never coming.” 

“Many a hundred years?” thought Tom; but he 
had seen so much in his travels that he had quite given 
up being astonished; and, indeed, he could think of 
nothing but Ellie. So he stood and looked at Ellie, 


Water-Babies 


221 


and Ellie looked at him ; and they liked the employ- 
ment so much that they stood and looked for seven 
years more, and neither spoke nor stirred. 

At last they heard the fairy say : ^‘Attention, chil- 
dren. Are you never going to look at me again?’’ 

‘‘We have been looking at you all this while,” 
they said. And so they thought they had been. 

“Then look at me once more,” said she. 

They looked — and both of them cried out at once, 
“Oh, who are you, after all?” 

“You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.” 

“No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid ; but 
you are grown quite beautiful now !” 

“To you,” said the fairy. “But look again.” 

“You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, 
solemn voice. “But you are grown quite young 
again.” 

“To you,” said the fairy. “Look again.” 

“You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I 
went to Harthover ! ” 

And when they looked she was none of them, and 
yet all of them at once. 

“You may take him home with you now on Sun- 
days, Ellie,” she said. “ He has become fit to go with 
you, because he has done the thing he did not like.” 


222 


Water-Babies 


So Tom went home with Ellie on Sundays, and 
sometimes on weekdays, too; and he is now a great 
man of science, and can plan railroads, and steam- 
engines, and electric telegraphs, and so forth; and 
knows everything about everything, except why a 
hen’s egg doesn’t turn into a crocodile, and two or 
three other little things. And all this from what he 
learned when he was a water-baby underneath the sea. 

And that is the end of my story. 


Printed in the Unithd States of America. 


'’^HE following pages contain advertisements of a 
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U. S. GRANT 
LA SALLE 
DANIEL BOONE 
LAFAYETTE 

OTHER VOLUMES 


By RUPERT S. HOLLAND 
By william C. SPRAGUE 
By MILDRED STAPLEY 
By F. E. LOVELL COOMBS 
By LOUISE S. HASBROUCK 
By LUCILE GULLIVER 
By MARTHA F. CROW 
BEING PREPARED 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


Publishers 


64-66 Fifth Avenue 


New York 


NEW BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 


CAM CLARKE 

By JOHN H. WALSH 

Clothf i2mo, $1.35 

A boy is the hero of this book — a live boy, good, 
bad and indifferent at times, but always real and 
likable. The story of his youth, of his escapades, of 
his “ growing up ” days in the Palouse country, of his 
comrades, particularly his boon companion, Mart 
Campin,” is full of humor, the humor of Mark Twain 
in “ Tom Sawyer,” of William Allen White in his Boy- 
ville stories. The heartiness of the West, good spirits, 
a brisk movement of plot, and a score of interesting 
and appealing people, these are all here. 

‘‘ Mr. Walsh has something of Mark Twain’s power 
to get the boy’s point of view. Anyone who likes 
youth will like Cam Clarke .” — Boston Daily Advertiser, 

“An imusual story, unusually written, and well 
worth reading.” — Independent, 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 


Publishers 


64-66 Fifth Avenue 


New York 


NEW BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 


THE MASTERING OF MEXICO 

By KATE STEPHENS 

Decorated cloth, i2mo, $1.50 

The conquest of Mexico by Cortes in the sixteenth cen- 
tury was one of the most thrilling and picturesque exploits 
in all the annals of the art of war. The stern and hardy 
explorer and his few hundred heroes who led Europe’s 
quest for the treasure-land of the new world, left behind 
them memories full of adventure more stirring than the 
strongest fiction. The tale of one of these adventurers, 
Bernal Diaz del Castillo, with a genial spirit which we are 
not apt to attribute to men of his time, has left for us the 
picture of this little band of Spaniards triumphing over a 
militarized nation of fierce warriors, sweeping through 
Mexico on foaming horses from the sea-board to the Aztec 
capital, with the glory of conquest blazing in their eyes 
through the glitter of swords and the flash of muskets and 
the gleam of the southern sun. In retelling Diaz’ narra- 
tive for modern readers Miss Stephens has lost no particle 
of that astonishing visualization of the deeds and sufferings 
of Cortes’ intrepid conquerors, and none of the impression 
of sturdy, single-hearted faith in comrades and captain 
which so richly pervaded the original. 

It is a great story — one of the most interesting of his- 
torical romances.” — New York Globe. 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 





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